ML20083H162
| ML20083H162 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/21/2001 |
| From: | NRC/NMSS/DMSST/ASPB |
| To: | |
| LUKES KIM/NMSS/MSST | |
| References | |
| NRC-080 | |
| Download: ML20083H162 (341) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
NRC-Agreement State Workshop on the National Materials Program Working Group Docket Number: (not applicable)
Location: Arlington, Texas Date: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 Work Order No.: NRC-080 Pages 1-332 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 NRC-AGREEMENT STATE WORKSHOP 5 ON THE NATIONAL MATERIALS PROGRAM 6 WORKING GROUP 7 + + + + +
8 WEDNESDAY 9 FEBRUARY 21, 2001 10 + + + + +
11 ARLINGTON, TEXAS 12 + + + + +
13 The meeting convened at the NRC Region IV 14 Office, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Arlington, Texas, at 15 8:00 a.m.
16 17 PANEL MEMBERS:
18 FRANCIS X. "CHIP" CAMERON, Facilitator 19 KATHY ALLEN, CO-CHAIR 20 JIM MYERS, CO-CHAIR 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 ATTENDEES:
2 DWIGHT CHAMBERLAIN 3 FRED COMBS 4 DONNY DICHARRY 5 MARK DORUFF 6 FRED ENTWISTLE 7 WILLIAM FIELDS 8 TERRY FRAZEE 9 AUBREY GODWIN 10 JOHN HICKEY 11 BILL HOUSE 12 FELIX KILLAR 13 BOB LEOPOLD 14 JAMES MARBACH 15 RUTH McBURNEY 16 DAVE MINNAAR 17 JIM MYERS 18 BILL PASSETTI 19 CINDY PEDERSON 20 KATE ROUGHAN 21 BRUCE SANZA 22 PAUL SCHMIDT 23 CHARLES SHOWALTER 24 ANTHONY THOMPSON 25 MIKE VEILUVA NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 A-G-E-N-D-A 2 SPEAKER / AFFILIATION PAGE 3 Linda Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 Ellis Merschoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5 Regional Administrator, NRC Region IV 6 F.X. "Chip" Cameron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7 Special Counsel, Public Liaison, NRC 8 Kathy Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 9 Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety 10 Co-Chair, National Materials Working Group 11 Jim Myers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 12 NRC Office of State and Tribal Programs 13 Co-Chair, National Materials Working Group 14 Fred Combs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 15 Deputy Director 16 NRC Office of State and Tribal Programs 17 Bill House, Duratek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 18 Passetti, Director, Florida Radiation . . . . . . 59 19 Control Program 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (8:00 a.m.)
3 MS. HOWELL: Hi. Welcome to Region IV.
4 We're very pleased that all of you could make it here 5 today.
6 A couple of things, just kind of 7 administrative in nature. As most of you walked in, 8 you might have noticed there's two stairwells on 9 either end of the floor. Those are emergency exits in 10 case we decide to launch a fire drill on you while 11 you're here. Restrooms are located in the central 12 corridor.
13 And the building does have a no-smoking 14 policy. There are areas that sit on the perimeter of 15 the parking lot, or further if we could make you. But 16 if you choose to smoke, you can go out to the 17 perimeter, and you'll notice that there are several 18 ashtrays around.
19 When it comes to lunch, Chip will probably 20 speak a little more to this. I think we have you 21 slated to break around noon. There is a small 22 cafeteria/sandwich shop type thing that sits in the 23 building immediately behind us. And then, there are 24 several local restaurants.
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5 1 There will be several of us here in the 2 room. We can kind of point you in the right direction 3 if you have any questions about where you might want 4 to go.
5 Any questions on logistics or 6 administrative issues?
7 (No response.)
8 MS. HOWELL: Okay. If you need anything, 9 don't hesitate to tap any member sitting on the 10 perimeter. One or more of them are probably members 11 of the working group.
12 Also, for those of you that didn't see it, 13 there is a sign-in sheet up front. I know you're 14 going to be making formal introductions here, but we'd 15 like you to go ahead and sign in on the sign-up sheet 16 so that we can assure that your name gets entered into 17 the transcript as an attendee here at the conference.
18 And having said that, let me introduce Mr.
19 Ellis Merschoff. Mr. Merschoff is the Regional 20 Administrator here in Region IV. And we're going let 21 him kick off this meeting with some opening remarks.
22 MR. MERSCHOFF: Thank you, Linda. And 23 welcome to Texas on behalf of the other Texans here in 24 the audience. Sorry about the weather, but we'll try 25 better later in the day. And on behalf of the NRC, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 welcome to the Region IV offices here. Appreciate 2 your coming. This is an important process.
3 I want to first thank the working group.
4 The working group here has been at it for almost a 5 year. I guess it was March 2000 when this kicked off.
6 It's an important process. And all you 7 have to do is look at the demographics to realize how 8 important it is.
9 Back in the early '70s the agreement state 10 program in the NRC reached approximate parity in terms 11 of the number of licensees that we each inspected and 12 regulated.
13 In the past 25 to 30 years, that balance 14 has shifted to about a three-to-one ratio in terms of 15 agreement state oversight to NRC oversight.
16 You don't have to project that trend too 17 far into the future to realize that the bulk of the 18 experience and field knowledge is shifting fully to 19 the agreement state side.
20 The efforts to keep the infrastructure 21 intact, the regulations, the program, the burden of 22 that falls on a smaller and smaller group of those 23 remaining NRC licensees and the few recovery.
24 And so, of course, the purpose of this 25 group is to grapple with that and come up with a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 cooperative solution that takes us into the next 25 or 2 30 years. It's a tough job, and the efforts are 3 appreciated.
4 More importantly for this meeting, I'd 5 like to welcome the stakeholders and the members of 6 the public that came.
7 Although the group has been working for a 8 year and has used input from the public, this is the 9 first time we've tried in one place to bring these 10 diverse groups together to allow your voices to be 11 heard. And for that reason, this is really an 12 important meeting.
13 As I look at the attendance list here, we 14 succeeded in bringing those diverse views together.
15 We have public interest groups represented, the 16 states, of course, licensees, Federal agencies, 17 lawyers, academics, professional societies, and 18 industry advocates. That's a pretty healthy mix of 19 diverse views, none of whom tend to be shy.
20 And for that reason, we spared no expense 21 in obtaining the best facilitator available.
22 (General laughter.)
23 MR. CAMERON: That reminds me of that old 24 saying about, You get what you pay for.
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8 1 MR. MERSCHOFF: Chip told me that there's 2 no group for him. And I'm hoping that today we'll get 3 our money's worth.
4 But seriously, welcome. If there's 5 anything we can do to make this more productive, we'll 6 be happy to do it.
7 I know that nobody is shy in this room, 8 but I would encourage you to say your piece. This is 9 the time to get those issues on the table so that this 10 group can hear them, incorporate them into their work, 11 and move us towards the goal that everybody in this 12 room shares, and that's maintaining public health and 13 safety.
14 So thanks for coming. Good luck. Chip, 15 they're all yours.
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Ellis.
17 And let me add my welcome to all of you. I think I 18 know all of you.
19 My name is Chip Cameron. I'm the Special 20 Counsel for Public Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission.
22 And it's my pleasure to serve as your 23 facilitator for the next day-and-a-half. And my role 24 generally will be to try to help you have a more 25 effective meeting.
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9 1 And I just wanted to cover three business 2 items with you before we get into the substance of the 3 issues and before we get to the introduction of not 4 only all of you around the table, but the folks in the 5 audience and the members of the National Materials 6 working group.
7 And the three things I wanted to cover are 8 objectives for the meeting; secondly, format and 9 ground rules; and thirdly, just go over the agenda so 10 you have an idea of how we're going to proceed to try 11 to discuss this topic.
12 In terms of objectives, there's a number 13 of objectives.
14 One is to inform all of you about, what is 15 the National Materials Program? It's been a question 16 that's been asked for a while. And the working group 17 is trying to answer that for the Commission and the 18 agreement states. And they want to tell you about 19 that and also inform you of how it might affect your 20 particular interest.
21 Secondly, the people in the working group 22 are here to listen to you to find out, what are your 23 views on the issues, and also, what do you think about 24 the things that other people around the table are 25 saying on these issues?
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10 1 And the ultimate objective is to take all 2 of what's said over the next day-and-a-half and to use 3 that to enlighten the National Materials working 4 group's decision-making process and report writing to 5 the Commission.
6 In terms of format, we have sort of a 7 round table, I guess a Government round table, 8 designed by the Government. But we want to hear what 9 you have to say, and we want to have a discussion 10 among all of you on what others are saying on the 11 issues. And hopefully we'll get a more productive and 12 richer discussion that way.
13 So to that end, what I'll be trying to do 14 is to follow discussion threads and develop discussion 15 threads rather than just going from one person to the 16 other where we might get different topics introduced.
17 And sometimes that discussion thread 18 concept is more successful than others. Someone at a 19 recent workshop said it's more like a kitten pulling 20 on a ball of yarn and ending up with your whole house 21 or your living room wrapped up, and you would never be 22 able to untangle it. But hopefully we'll try to keep 23 it clear.
24 You have name tents in front of you. And 25 obviously one purpose is to remind everybody about who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 you are. But in this type of a format, I've found it 2 useful that if you do want to talk, put that name tent 3 on end like that.
4 Now, these name tents are a little bit 5 challenging in the sense that they may not be easy to 6 turn over, they may be falling. So we gave you a 7 bigger one. Okay? Now, this is going to tell 8 everybody how proficient you are at this. I would be 9 using the bigger one.
10 But that way it will relieve you of the 11 burden of having to raise your hands. Hopefully there 12 will be fewer interruptions that way. And also we'll 13 get a clearer transcript. We are transcribing this; 14 Barbara Walls is here as our stenographer. And she'll 15 be able to capture that more easily by doing it this 16 way.
17 At first, until Barbara learns everybody, 18 if you could just say your name before you talk. I 19 think for those of you around the table, we'll 20 probably be able to dispense with that after a while.
21 This focus is this group around the table, 22 but we're also going to be going out to all of you in 23 the audience after each major agenda item to get your 24 views on the issues. And when we go out to you, just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 signal me if you want to say something. And what I'll 2 do is I'll bring you this hand-held mic.
3 And if you could just tell us who you are 4 and what your affiliation is so that we have that for 5 the transcript.
6 Okay. In terms of agenda, we have Kathy 7 Allen and Jim Myers, who are going to start us off by 8 giving us some context on the National Materials 9 Program, and particularly the National Materials 10 working group, which is a joint NRC-Agreement State 11 working group that has been tackling this issue under 12 direction from the Commission.
13 And I think everybody has the background 14 information, the Commission paper that went out, and 15 the staff requirements memo. They're going to be 16 giving us some background, and then we'll have some 17 question/answer.
18 Obviously issues that we're going to be 19 discussing later on could come up at that time. We 20 just want to make sure everybody understands this.
21 And we'll go to the discussion of those issues when we 22 go to later items on the agenda.
23 And that would be our second major 24 discussion area, where we're going to talk about your 25 views on the NRC-Agreement State regulatory framework.
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13 1 What concerns do you have with those institutional 2 relationships? What opportunities do you see for 3 improvement?
4 And to lead that off, again to give us a 5 little context, we're going to be asking Fred Combs, 6 who is the Deputy Director of the NRC's Office of 7 State and Tribal Programs, to give us an overview of 8 what the NRC's regulatory responsibilities are with 9 the states, okay, so you'll have that backdrop.
10 Then we'll proceed to discuss views on 11 concerns, opportunities for improvement.
12 Again we're looking at the institutional 13 relationship between the NRC and the agreement states, 14 but also, what are the roles of other actors, the non-15 agreement states, the Conference of Radiation Control 16 -Program Directors, the EPA, other Federal agencies?
17 So I'll try to assist you by organizing 18 those concerns that we identify and end up having a 19 discussion on those concerns.
20 And we'll build on that to move into the 21 afternoon session where hopefully we'll have a list of 22 concerns. And then let's take a look at solutions, 23 potential solutions to that.
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14 1 And later on in the afternoon Kathy Allen 2 is going to talk about one concept that the working 3 group has been looking at; it's called the Alliance.
4 And we want to try to not -- we want to 5 try to give the working group some reaction to what 6 they have been doing. But we also want to get your 7 views, fresh views, on this issue so that they can 8 remain calibrated on their work.
9 And tomorrow morning we'll come back and 10 look at some specific issues. There is examples of 11 those issues on your agenda. But we're also going to 12 be generating probably other examples to use.
13 Just like any issue that comes up that may 14 be relevant for later discussion, we'll put those 15 issues here in a parking lot, and we'll make sure that 16 we come back and address those at the proper time.
17 Okay. Now what I'd like to do is just 18 have everybody around the table introduce themselves.
19 Tell us who you are, who you work for, and, if you 20 could, one or two sentences of what your interests or 21 concerns are on this particular issue.
22 And I guess, Dwight, since this is your 23 host office and you're one of our hosts here, that I 24 want to start with you.
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15 1 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Okay. I'm Dwight 2 Chamberlain. I'm Director of the Division of Nuclear 3 Materials Safety here in Region IV.
4 And my interest, I have an inspection and 5 licensing program with NRC licensees, and we have 6 about 650 licensees now. We had about 850, but 7 Oklahoma recently became an agreement state, so it 8 reduced our licenses down to 650.
9 And I don't think we have any agreement 10 states on the horizon right now. But we're seeing the 11 impact from the agreement states coming on. So I'm 12 interested in this working group and how they're going 13 to view that and what we're going to do about that.
14 MR. CAMERON: And if anybody is having 15 trouble, these mics in front of you are going into the 16 stenographer. Okay? So they're not amplifying. If 17 you are having trouble hearing anybody, we can use 18 this mic here, although it might be a little bit 19 awkward. But could everybody hear Dwight okay?
20 (No audible response.)
21 MR. CAMERON: All right. Well, then, 22 let's -- thank you, Dwight. Let's go to Bill.
23 MR. FIELDS: I'm Bill Fields with the 24 University of Missouri in Kansas City. I'm the RSO 25 and also Director of the Office of Chemical, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 Biological, and Radiation Safety, and I teach a 2 Masters degree program in dental radiology in our 3 dental school.
4 I'm the new kid on the block. I was asked 5 to participate in this discussion. I know just a very 6 little bit about the program, but obviously have an 7 interest in it.
8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bill. Charles?
9 MR. SHOWALTER: I'm Charles Showalter.
10 I'm Senior Director for Government Relations for the 11 American College of Radiology.
12 Of course, our members, many of them 13 practice nuclear medicine and radiation oncology and 14 thus are authorized users, licensees, from agreement 15 state and from the NRC. And so we have a great 16 interest in seeing how this program is going to play 17 out.
18 MR. CAMERON: Bill?
19 MR. PASSETTI: Bill Passetti; I'm the 20 Director of Florida's radiation control program. And 21 having a large agreement state program in Florida, 22 we're always looking for ways to work with others in 23 the Federal and state agencies to help reduce our 24 burden on developing regulations and guidance, so 25 we're really interested in this concept.
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17 1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
2 MS. McBURNEY: I'm Ruth McBurney. I'm 3 Director of the Division of Licensing, Registration 4 and Standards in the Texas Department of Health's 5 Bureau of Radiation Control.
6 And I'm here at this meeting representing 7 the Health Physics Society, which is a national 8 organization that is made up of professional health 9 physicists and people that are involved in radiation 10 safety.
11 One of our primary objectives in the 12 Health Physics Society is assuring that radiation 13 safety procedures and regulations and so forth are 14 based on sound science.
15 And so that's one of our primary interests 16 in this meeting, and also the collaboration of state 17 and Federal agencies in meeting those goals.
18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ruth. Terry?
19 MR. FRAZEE: I'm Terry Frazee from the 20 State of Washington. I'm the Supervisor of the 21 Radioactive Materials Section in that state.
22 We're sort of a medium-sized agreement 23 state, and our interest primarily is maintaining 24 compatibility with the NRC.
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18 1 MR. GODWIN: I'm Aubrey Godwin with the 2 Arizona radiation regulatory agency.
3 We have several interests, one of which 4 has to do with inspection on Indian territories.
5 We're interested in helping Dwight make those 6 inspections. Now and then we have to talk to him 7 about contracting time.
8 We're also interested in some non-Atomic 9 Energy Act regulated items that we would like to see 10 get regulated.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And I think we'll be 12 putting a finer point on that as we get into the 13 discussion about what items those should be.
14 David?
15 MR. MINNAAR: I'm David Minnaar. I'm with 16 the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and 17 that's the state radiation control agency for 18 radioactive materials.
19 And my interests are to represent the 20 views of the non-agreement state. And sort of taking 21 off what Aubrey said, I'm vitally concerned with 22 radioactive materials that are non-Federally regulated 23 and consistency among groups that are involved in 24 standard setting, both at Federal and state levels.
25 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, David. Paul?
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19 1 MR. SCHMIDT: I'm Paul Schmidt. I'm 2 Director of Wisconsin's radiation control program.
3 We're one of I guess the official 4 agreement state want-to-be's at this point in time, so 5 we're kind of halfway between agreement state and non-6 agreement state.
7 Very interested in this process as it 8 might impact the state in our current development 9 process to become an agreement state.
10 I'm also here representing the Conference 11 of Radiation Control Program Directors, as well, since 12 this has a potential to impact both agreement states 13 and non-agreement states, the components of CRCPD.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Kathy?
15 MS. ALLEN: I'm Senior Project Manager 16 with the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety, in the 17 group that does the licensing inspection and X-ray 18 registration. I'm also co-chair of this working group 19 and representing the organization of agreement states; 20 I'm also chair of that organization at this time.
21 MR. MYERS: I'm Jim Myers. I work for the 22 Office of State and Tribal Programs of NRC. And they 23 call me a health physicist, but I really run our Web 24 sites and servers and do those kinds of things that --
25 (General laughter.)
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20 1 MR. MYERS: Yes. I know. Everybody is 2 laughing about that.
3 MR. CAMERON: We wonder why they're 4 laughing?
5 MR. MYERS: Yes. Well, me too. I haven't 6 checked my stuff this morning, so --
7 But I'm also co-chair for this working 8 group. And we've found it terribly exciting. And 9 we're really keen on finding out what you all think 10 about it.
11 MR. MARBACH: Good morning. I'm Jim 12 Marbach. I'm just a simple practicing medical 13 physicist. I'm impressed to be at this table. And I 14 practice mostly therapy physics and mostly in the 15 state of Texas, although we do do some consulting in 16 Louisiana and other states.
17 And I guess I'm sort of representing the 18 Southwest Chapter of the AAPM. I'm very pleased to 19 have been invited to be here, and mostly through the 20 efforts of our people in the state, Ruth and her 21 people. We feel very pleased that we can work closely 22 with our regulators in Texas. And I'm here to learn.
23 So I'm very pleased to be here.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
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21 1 MR. LEOPOLD: Hello. My name is Bob 2 Leopold. I'm from Nebraska. I work with the Health 3 and Human Services system.
4 I'm responsible for roughly half of the 5 public health programs in the state of Nebraska, 6 including radiological materials, but also including 7 everything from all the public water systems, to all 8 the vital records, to the state laboratories, and on 9 and on and on.
10 I guess one of the things I would like to 11 see is more uniformity as we interact with the many 12 Federal agencies we interact with, because they tend 13 to each want their own separate process.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Mike?
15 MR. VEILUVA: I'm Mike Veiluva. I'm with 16 the Western States Legal Foundation. We're based in 17 the San Francisco Bay area, which is the land of cheap 18 and abundant energy right now.
19 (General laughter.)
20 MR. VEILUVA: We're an environmental and 21 disarmament organization. We've been involved in NRC 22 matters probably for about the last ten years. And we 23 have a great interest in, as one can imagine, citizen 24 participation, public interest group participation, 25 and like many of you say, standards.
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22 1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mike.
2 MR. HOUSE: I'm Bill House for Duratek.
3 I'm actually Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for 4 chem-nuclear systems. We're in the waste business, so 5 obviously we're the bad guys.
6 But we are interested in the program for 7 impacts on our company as well as our customers, most 8 of which are licensees that you folks license.
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bill.
10 MR. ENTWISTLE: I'm Fred Entwistle with 11 the 3M Company. I manage the corporate health physics 12 group there.
13 Our interest is, we presently have three 14 NRC licenses and about a dozen agreement state 15 licenses. With Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania 16 all becoming agreement states, we expect that number 17 to go up.
18 We're looking for anything that makes it 19 more consistent across the different agencies that we 20 deal with.]
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Fred. Mark?
22 MR. DORUFF: I'm Mark Doruff. I'm one of 23 the directors of the Council on Radionucleides and 24 Radiopharmaceuticals. We are an industry group that 25 represents manufacturers and distributors of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 radiopharmaceuticals used in diagnostic and 2 therapeutic applications.
3 Also, we represent manufacturers of life-4 science research radiochemicals and sources for 5 medical use.
6 We have facilities located in many areas 7 in the United States, and our customers, several 8 thousand of them, are located in virtually every 9 state. And because of that we are struggling with the 10 current framework for regulation of these types of 11 materials. And we're always interested in the issues 12 of adequacy and compatibility.
13 We understand and appreciate the need for 14 safe regulation of our materials and their 15 applications, and protection of the public and our 16 end-users is certainly very important.
17 But we need to work to find ways for 18 industry and the agencies both to more efficiently use 19 their resources so that areas in need of improvement 20 can be addressed.
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mark. Felix?
22 MR. KILLAR: I'm Felix Killar with the 23 Nuclear Energy Institute. NEI is a policy 24 organization for the peaceful uses of the atom.
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24 1 We represent all of the utilities. We 2 also represent all of the major pharmaceutical houses, 3 major producers of radioisotopes, and a lot of the 4 individual organizations or companies that use the 5 isotopes on products and devices.
6 What we're interested in is similar to 7 what Mark has indicated, is we're interested in 8 consistency.
9 We see that the Agreement States Program 10 and the NRC Program right now, there's a lot of 11 inconsistencies, and we'd like to see about 12 consistencies.
13 Because a lot of our members work with 14 NORM and NARM and also special nuclear materials, we 15 also have issues with dual regulations, we'll have an 16 NRC license, we'll have a safe facility, we'll also 17 have a agreement state license.
18 Or they may have an NRC license for their 19 NORM, but they also may be holding a NARM license from 20 a non-agreement state.
21 So we want to try and see what we can do 22 to get one licensing agent for all the radioactive 23 materials so we can make a little bit more consistent 24 program and policy across the country.
25 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Felix. John?
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25 1 MR. HICKEY: I'm John Hickey, Chief of the 2 NRC Material Licensing Branch in Washington, D.C. I 3 have a day-to-day interest in cooperating and trying 4 to maintain consistency with the agreement states and 5 other regulatory agencies and interests.
6 I also have a broad interest, as we get 7 more and more agreement states, as to what the policy 8 and emphasis implications are with respect to what is 9 NRC going to do and what are the states going to do 10 and what is the emphasis going to be?
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, John. Kate?
12 MS. ROUGHAN: My name is Kate Roughan.
13 I'm the regulatory affairs and quality assurance 14 manager for AEA Technology.
15 We manufacture industrial radiography 16 sources and devices and also manufacture and 17 distribute radioactive sources for use in oil well 18 logging, calibration, smoke detectors, et cetera.
19 My primary interest is, we have customers 20 and users in all the states, and there does not appear 21 to be a uniform set of radiation safety regulations, 22 so it's very difficult for both ourselves and all of 23 our users to comply with the regulations because we're 24 not sure of what the differences are between each 25 different state.
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26 1 So my interest is a uniform set of 2 radiation safety regulations and consistency.
3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Kate.
4 MR. DICHARRY: My name is Donny Dicharry.
5 I'm with Source Production and Equipment Company. We 6 are also an industrial radiography equipment and 7 source manufacturer located next door, in Louisiana.
8 I also represent the Nondestructive 9 Testing Management Association, as well as the 10 American Society for Nondestructive Testing.
11 Both of those organizations are involved 12 with industrial radiography. And I can tell you that 13 at this moment this program is only just beginning to 14 emerge on their radar screen.
15 Yet I can easily predict that, as they 16 learn more about it, they will be eager to seek ways 17 to participate, to set objective safety standards, and 18 to seek less expensive ways to meet them.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Donny.
20 Since we do have only a few people in the 21 audience, I think it might be useful to introduce them 22 now. And if you're on the National Materials working 23 group, please signify that.
24 And during the breaks, lunch, whatever, 25 please, you know, talk to your colleagues off-line.
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27 1 MR. DeCICCO: Joe DeCicco. I'm with the 2 NRC Industrial Neuromedical Safety Division. And I'm 3 on the work group.
4 MS. HOWELL: Linda Howell. I work here in 5 Region IV in the Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, 6 and I'm also a participant in the working group.
7 MR. COMBS: I'm Fred Combs. I'm Deputy 8 Director of the NRC's Office of State and Tribal 9 Programs, and I'm an advisor to the working group.
10 MS. PEDERSON: Good morning. I'm Cindy 11 Pederson. I'm from the NRC Region III Office. I'm 12 the Director of the Division of Nuclear Materials 13 Safety, and I'm also a member of the National 14 Materials Program steering committee.
15 MR. PANGBURN: George Pangburn. I'm the 16 Director of NRC's Region I Materials Program, and I'm 17 also chairing a group within NMSS to -- a Phase 2 18 group that's looking at the Byproduct Materials 19 Program.
20 Part of my interest here is to deal with 21 a concern of the Commission about potential overlap 22 and inconsistency between the group that I'm working 23 with and this group.
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28 1 professional society that represents radiation 2 oncology.
3 And as like Charlie, I will be the conduit 4 to our members and bring issues here when appropriate, 5 make sure they're informed.
6 MR. MERSCHOFF: Ellis Merschoff, Regional 7 Administrator here in Region IV. I hope to sit in on 8 various portions of the meeting today to listen to the 9 issues.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Ellis.
11 MR. LOPEZ: Jose Lopez; I'm the Director 12 of Governmental Health and Safety and Radiation Safety 13 Officer for the University of Texas at Western Medical 14 Center in Dallas. And basically I'm interested 15 because of our broad scope license with the State of 16 Texas.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jose.
18 MR. HACKNEY: Charles Hackney, Regional 19 State Liaison Officer, Region IV. And I'm here to 20 listen to the comments, and I'm very interested in the 21 program.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Charles. Let's 23 go over here.
24 MS. DRINNON: Hi. I'm Elizabeth Drinnon.
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29 1 inspection and emergency response. And I'm 2 representing the CRCPD on this committee, and I'm a 3 part of the National Materials working group.
4 MS. CARDWELL: Good morning. I'm Cindy 5 Cardwell; work with the Texas Bureau of Radiation 6 Control as Deputy Director of Standards there, and am 7 here representing CRCPD on the working group.
8 MR. WALKER: I'm Bob Walker. I'm with the 9 Massachusetts radiation control program, and I am also 10 a National Materials Program working group, and I am 11 one of the three CRCPD representatives.
12 MS. ABBOTT: I'm Carol Abbott with NRC 13 Office of the Chief Financial Officer, and I'm also a 14 member of the working group.
15 MR. WHITE: Duncan White; I'm from NRC 16 Region I and a member of the working group.
17 MR. JACOBY: I'm Jake Jacoby from the 18 State of Colorado representing OAS and a member of the 19 working group.
20 MR. HILL: I'm Tom Hill from the Georgia 21 Department of Natural Resources Radioactive Materials 22 Program. I'm a member of the working group and the 23 third representative of the Organization of Agreement 24 States.
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30 1 MR. SANZA: I'm Bruce Sanza. I'm the 2 Radiation Safety Officer for International Isotopes, 3 a manufacturer/distributor of radiopharmaceuticals in 4 Denton, Texas.
5 But up until ten months ago I was with the 6 State of Illinois for 14 years in the regulatory 7 program. So I am interested in both sides, mainly on 8 a current role in the impacts of the distribution of 9 radiopharmaceuticals.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Bruce.
11 MR. RAKOVAN: I'm Lance Rakovan from the 12 Office of State and Tribal Programs with the NRC.
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Lance.
14 Well, I think you can see that we have a 15 great group of people around the table. And we will 16 be going to the audience for discussion of some of 17 these points after we get finished with them.
18 And I think everybody is probably pretty 19 familiar with these acronyms. CRCPD, okay, that's 20 Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors. At 21 some point, for those people who are not familiar with 22 CRCPD, it may be useful to describe the function of 23 CRCPD.
24 Likewise, another acronym that we've heard 25 is OAS. That's the Organization of Agreement States.
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31 1 Some of you also might not be familiar with that group 2 and what it does.
3 And I think what -- what I think that 4 we'll ask you to do is, if you could do that. And 5 Paul, if you want to add anything after that, please 6 feel free to do that.
7 But right now what we have is a context 8 session. And we're going to ask Kathy and Jim to tell 9 us about the National Materials Program and National 10 Materials working group. And they are the two co-11 chairs. I think they did a good job of introducing 12 themselves.
13 The one thing that Kathy did not mention, 14 I don't think, is the fact that she, before she joined 15 the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety, she was 16 with the industry with a manufacturer, I guess, of 17 radioactive sources.
18 And Jim said that he's the Web Master, and 19 I guess that's all we need to say about that.
20 MR. MYERS: Don't go any further.
21 MR. CAMERON: Web Master. And this guy 22 over here from the land of cheap and bountiful energy.
23 But at any rate, why don't you go ahead?
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32 1 MS. ALLEN: Okay. Well, as Ellis started 2 us off, he took most of my talk already, so this will 3 be really short.
4 There are currently 32 agreement states, 5 and there are three more states that have signed 6 letters of intent to become agreement states with the 7 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, plus the NRC.
8 So basically right now we've got 34 9 different entities -- or 33 different entities 10 regulating radioactive material.
11 In addition, there are a bunch of other 12 states that have the authority to regulate NARM. The 13 Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn't have that 14 authority right now. So there is kind of a patchwork 15 of regulations, and there are some problems with that.
16 Currently the agreement states represent 17 about 17,000 licensees, and the NRC has around 5,000 18 licensees. The crossover occurred back in 1972 when 19 the number of agreement states licensees matched the 20 number of NRC licensees, and that number continues to 21 climb. As more and more states go Agreement, fewer 22 and fewer states are regulated under NRC's blanket.
23 I'll let you go from here.
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33 1 MR. MYERS: Thanks, Kathy. Let me just 2 kind of give a little perspective on why we're all 3 here and how this got started.
4 Sometime maybe about 18 months ago or so, 5 the Commission became aware of the, I guess the 6 significance of more states applying for agreement 7 state status. And consequently, whenever an agreement 8 state becomes an agreement state, we lose licensees.
9 And we just don't lose licensees from our 10 mix of regulated entities in onesies and twosies, we 11 lose them at hundreds at a time.
12 And I don't remember the number from 13 Oklahoma, but how many went to Oklahoma?
14 VOICE: About 230.
15 MR. MYERS: 230 licensees that NRC 16 regulated went to Oklahoma when they became an 17 agreement state.
18 So the significance of this is pretty 19 important when you start looking at the national 20 program that we have.
21 The Commission then directed that a 22 working group be formed, that it be composed of 23 entities from NRC, the regions particularly be 24 represented in it, as well as the CRCPD and the OAS be 25 represented in that working group.
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34 1 And they gave us some -- we had to kind of 2 go through their directions and glean out the things 3 that they wanted us to do. And that's represented in 4 our charter, which is at the Website. And I think 5 we've given everybody copies of it; you can take a 6 look at it.
7 But basically it was to figure out how to 8 optimize resources, account for individual needs, 9 promote consensus on regulatory priorities, promoting 10 an exchange of information, and then, harmonizing 11 regulatory approaches.
12 So what we've been working on over the 13 last more than a year really is to come up with some 14 ideas. And at this point we're kind of at a position 15 where we think we want to listen to hear more about 16 what you all think about this whole process.
17 MS. ALLEN: At this point we -- back in 18 '72 and '73 and in the '80s, when there were still 19 more licensees in agreement states than there were in 20 NRC, you know, we just continued to build the number 21 of agreement states and the number of licensees that 22 were regulated by agreement states. But we've sort of 23 reached a critical mass, I suppose.
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35 1 We all recognize, NRC and the states 2 recognize that we have an obligation to licensees who 3 pay the fees to streamline our activities.
4 Also, there's been a shift in expertise, 5 I suppose. As more and more states regulate more and 6 more licensees, we find that we have a lot of complex 7 licensees to regulate. And NRC, then, basically has 8 less experience in regulating some types of licensees.
9 So the expertise in some situations has 10 actually shifted to the states. Certainly the states 11 have a lot more staffing, and just the sheer number of 12 licensees exceeds theirs.
13 So we want to recognize the expertise and 14 where it lies. We want to maintain safety, improve 15 effectiveness and efficiency in our regulations.
16 And I know even when I was a licensee I 17 wanted uniformity among the states. But there are 18 certain issues and areas where we have to allow states 19 certain flexibilities because of statutory 20 requirements in those states or other legally binding 21 type of requirements, plus licensees are a little bit 22 different in every state.
23 I mean, a particular manufacturer may have 24 a certain type of concern or use of materials.
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36 1 it is in Minnesota, so there are certain geographical 2 concerns that states are able to address.
3 And so we need to figure out a system that 4 will allow states some flexibility to deal with some 5 of these issues.
6 We want to reduce the unnecessary burden 7 on licensees, especially those that have multiple 8 facilities in multiple jurisdictions, and figure out 9 a way to enhance public confidence in the regulatory 10 process.
11 We want to start sharing more, sharing our 12 resources, sharing our expertise, sharing decision-13 making responsibilities, and just overall 14 responsibility for radiation safety.
15 The current situation has evolved over the 16 years. But basically what we're looking at now is the 17 Nuclear Regulatory Commission has always taken the 18 lead in setting priorities and requirements for 19 regulations or writing regulations. The states have 20 then followed.
21 And because of our agreements, we have to 22 adopt some of the regulations to NRC. But we don't 23 typically go ahead of them. We wait until NRC 24 determines that there's a need, and they write a 25 regulation. And then we all look at it, and we sort NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 of massage it a little bit. And then, the 32 states 2 independently have to adopt similar regulations.
3 There are a few too many steps in here.
4 And I think at this point maybe I'll mention the CRCPD 5 and the OAS.
6 The Conference of Radiation Control 7 Program Directors -- and kick me if I go astray -- is 8 a group that represents all states, not just agreement 9 states.
10 And they represent a whole spectrum of 11 activities for those states: emergency planning, 12 dealing with NARM, dealing with NORM, X-ray, 13 mammography, radioactive materials licensing, 14 inspection, the whole gamut relating to ionizing 15 radiation and anything that those states may do or 16 deal with.
17 And they have subcommittees that look at 18 regulations. And then, those groups or those 19 committees focusing on the regulations in areas where 20 there is no Federal guidance or Federal umbrella, 21 these groups gather together experts to write 22 regulations for things like X-ray, diagnostic X-ray, 23 dental X-ray.
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38 1 inspectors to use when they do these inspections. So 2 it's sort of a clearing house and a way for states to 3 sort of coordinate and share information.
4 So far so good?
5 VOICE: So far so good.
6 MS. ALLEN: In addition, they do look at 7 radioactive material regulation. I mentioned NARM and 8 NORM, which are things that NRC does not regulate.
9 But they also look at things that NRC does have 10 jurisdiction over, byproduct material --
11 MR. CAMERON: Can you just, for those who 12 don't know the distinction between -- can you just 13 tell them about NARM and NORM?
14 MS. ALLEN: Sure. NARM is naturally 15 occurring or accelerator produced radioactive 16 material.
17 And NORM is actually a subset of NARM, 18 which stands for naturally occurring radioactive 19 material.
20 Most people think of NARM as radium 21 needles used in hospitals or accelerator produced 22 radionucleides like Thallium, Gallium, Indium 111, and 23 Iodine 123.
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39 1 NORM is typically diffuse pipe scale type 2 things, things that usually have us out at landfills 3 checking out old water heaters and things like that.
4 VOICE: What does the acronym stand for 5 again?
6 MS. ALLEN: NORM stands for naturally 7 occurring radioactive material.
8 VOICE: Okay. Thank you.
9 VOICE: And NARM is --
10 MS. ALLEN: Naturally occurring or 11 accelerator produced radioactive material.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And NORM is a subset 13 of NARM?
14 MS. ALLEN: Technically. Yes.
15 MR. CAMERON: So unless there is a 16 specific distinction that needs to be drawn between 17 NARM and NORM, can we just use the term NARM? All 18 right.
19 MS. ALLEN: And there is a subset of NORM, 20 which is TENORM, technically enhanced naturally 21 occurring radioactive material.
22 That's when you take the natural stuff, 23 and you mess with it, concentrate it.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
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40 1 MS. ALLEN: So CRCPD covers all aspects of 2 radiation protection that all the states deal with.
3 The OAS, the Organization of Agreement 4 States, is made up of only those states that have 5 signed agreements with the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission or states that, like my friend Paul next to 7 me, have signed letters of intent, and we call them --
8 they want to be agreement states, and they're just 9 working their way up there.
10 So these are agreement states and states 11 going through the process of becoming agreement 12 states.
13 We tend to focus mostly on issues relating 14 to our agreement with the Nuclear Regulatory 15 Commission. We're not a subset of CRCPD; we're a 16 separate entity, a separate organization.
17 There is some overlap between the two 18 groups, and so we try and keep the communication open 19 between the two groups.
20 But we focus mostly on issues of 21 compatibility, adequacy of programs, and issues 22 specific to the relationship between states and the 23 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
24 Is that kind of making sense? Any 25 questions so far?
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41 1 MR. CAMERON: And I know a lot of you know 2 this. But just so that we have this down, are there 3 any questions at this point about these two 4 organizations?
5 And this is classically called Atomic 6 Energy Act, AEA material that's dealt with here.
7 CRCPD deals with not only --
8 MS. ALLEN: Not only radioactive material, 9 but --
10 MR. CAMERON: -- AEA material, but also 11 NARM and NORM. Dwight.
12 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I just have one question 13 about the funding. Is there any funding for these 14 organizations?
15 MS. ALLEN: For the Organization of 16 Agreement States there is no funding. It's all 17 voluntary participation by the states paid by the 18 states. There is one meeting a year where the states 19 pay their own way to get there.
20 There is a little bit of help from the 21 NRC. They pay for microphones at our meeting. That's 22 pretty much it.
23 MR. CAMERON: And they send their chief 24 facilitator.
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42 1 facilitator in. We're renegotiating his contract 2 right now.
3 (General laughter.)
4 MS. ALLEN: The CRCPD does get funding.
5 And actually, I'd rather have Paul address the funding 6 for CRCPD if that's okay, since he is chair of that 7 organization right now.
8 MR. SCHMIDT: CRCPD is an official, 9 established organization with headquarters in 10 Kentucky. It does receive most of its funding, well, 11 from memberships; there are annual membership fees.
12 But most of the funding comes from the Federal 13 agencies.
14 And CRCPD deals with all the Federal 15 agencies that have some form of radiation regulatory 16 oversight, like FDA, EPA, DOE, NRC, and anyone else.
17 So that's where most of its funding comes from, is 18 from these Federal agencies through contracts and 19 activities in a variety of formats.
20 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Thank you.
21 MR. SCHMIDT: You're welcome.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we do have Mary 23 Clark from EPA coming. She's flying in today. And 24 for example, she is the liaison from the EPA, I guess, 25 to the CRCPD. Felix.
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43 1 MR. KILLAR: Chip, if I can, I would like 2 to talk about three other materials that haven't been 3 discussed so far, but they are important from the 4 industry perspective.
5 One is byproduct material, which you 6 haven't touched on. Basically byproduct material is 7 material that's produced as a byproduct of a nuclear 8 reaction, either in the fuel itself as a fission 9 product which is recovered from the fuel or from 10 irradiation in the reactor.
11 That is regulated by the NRC, but that 12 also is something that is ceded to the agreement 13 states for regulations.
14 In addition, there is source material.
15 Source material is a form NARM -- or NORM. Excuse me.
16 Let me get my acronyms correctly. And source material 17 also is a material that is regulated by the NRC, but 18 they also cede that regulation to the agreement 19 states, so that could also be regulated by the NRC or 20 an agreement state.
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44 1 fission like plutonium, things along that line. And 2 that is strictly limited to NRC regulation.
3 And so I wanted to make sure people were 4 aware of these --
5 VOICE: Above certain amounts.
6 MR. KILLAR: Excuse me.
7 VOICE: A large quantity.
8 VOICE: Above certain amounts. Yes.
9 Lower concentrations can go to an agreement state.
10 MR. KILLAR: Excuse me. Critical mass, 11 350 grams of fissile material, if you want to get 12 specific.
13 Excuse me. I'm glad the crowd is awake.
14 I see that you're in this discussion.
15 (General laughter.)
16 MR. CAMERON: I think Fred is going to be 17 going into some of this in his presentation perhaps.
18 But thanks for bringing that up, Felix.
19 This is -- when we talk about Atomic 20 Energy Act materials, these are classically the three 21 categories. And some of the -- we heard the 350 22 distinction that classically is what gets delegated to 23 agreement state. But Fred may put a little finer 24 point on that.
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45 1 And then, what we were talking about in 2 terms of NORM are materials that are non-AEA materials 3 for the most part. And the states through their 4 what's called police power, I guess, have chosen to 5 regulate that. Then, they don't need any delegation 6 from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to do 7 that.
8 But do you guys have more on the national 9 working group before we follow this rabbit?
10 MS. ALLEN: Just a little bit. What we 11 were trying to stress --
12 MR. CAMERON: Then we'll go for questions.
13 MS. ALLEN: Yes. What we were trying to 14 stress on this was that, even though they're separate 15 states, there are organizations that try and help 16 coordinate some of that activity.
17 Currently for byproduct material and 18 material covered by agreement states, the Nuclear 19 Regulatory Commission typically takes the lead in 20 establishing priorities for writing regulations, 21 establishing inspection frequencies that the states 22 must match, and establishing requirements for 23 maintaining programs that are adequate to product the 24 public health and safety and compatible with their 25 regulations.
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46 1 Since the expertise has really shifted and 2 the experience and the knowledge in certain areas has 3 shifted towards the states, states are looking at 4 things lately and saying, Wait a minute, maybe we 5 should be taking the lead on some of these, or maybe 6 we need to figure out a better way to coordinate what 7 our real national priority is.
8 Because there are priorities in states 9 that NRC may not see because they don't have the 10 number licensees asking those types of questions.
11 So the National Materials Program working 12 group is looking at ways to figure out how we can get 13 these different entities to try and work together and 14 recognize where the expertise is and the experience 15 and figure out what kind of roles the different groups 16 should be playing in the future. What role should the 17 NRC have? What role should the states have?
18 And those other two organizations, OAS and 19 CRCPD, should they be playing another role? Should 20 they disappear? Is there a better way to be doing 21 what we're doing? Because right now there's an awful 22 lot of repetition when NRC writes a rule?
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47 1 states to use, and then the states go and write 2 another rule.
3 So you have many different layers, lots of 4 repetition, and it's just not an effective or 5 efficient way of doing business.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Jim, why don't 7 you do whatever you need to do here? And then we'll 8 open it up for questions.
9 MR. MYERS: I just want to go back and 10 reiterate one thing so that it doesn't get lost here.
11 One of the problems that we have -- I 12 mean, we've beaten this thing about dwindling licenses 13 to death. But I think that it's the issue of, not 14 only are you losing the numbers of licensees, but the 15 agency is losing types of licensees or program codes, 16 if you will.
17 So as we continue to go down this path of 18 more agreement states, we begin to lose touch with 19 particular categories of licensees.
20 For example, I guess up until the time 21 Massachusetts became an agreement state, we had a 22 radiography equipment manufacturer in our domain. And 23 when Massachusetts became an agreement state, that 24 facility transferred to their regulatory control.
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48 1 So now we no longer have direct hands-on 2 experience, if you will, with that type of an 3 organization.
4 And I think also that, if you look at 5 NRC -- and pardon me, Ellis, for speaking about your 6 region.
7 But you know, this gentleman over here, 8 when you think about it, really regulates a community 9 that covers about the same size as the former Soviet 10 Union, because he goes from the Mississippi River all 11 the way past Guam, thousands of miles past Guam, to 12 the North Pole and maybe down south of the Equator 13 someplace.
14 So this is a huge organization to try 15 to -- or geographic area to try to regulate. And 16 that's an awesome thing to think about how to do that.
17 And as we continue to lose agreement 18 states out of our states out of Region IV -- and 19 there's not too many left -- all we're left with now 20 is looking after the Federal entities and other kinds 21 of things that are there. So I mean, again, we 22 continue to lose that. And we have the communications 23 problems with our licensees.
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49 1 So we've got to bear that in mind, that 2 it's also the types of licensees that are important to 3 us.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And how about just a 5 few words on what your schedule and products are for 6 the group?
7 MR. MYERS: Right now the product is due 8 to be delivered to the Commission around the first of 9 May. And we're in the process now about halfway 10 through writing up a lot of this. And we needed to 11 have this meeting to get more input into the product.
12 Once it gets to the Commission, it'll 13 probably be, in typical fashion, several months before 14 they finally make a decision about anything. And 15 we're probably not looking for a Commission decision 16 until probably late summer or early fall.
17 MR. CAMERON: And the product is going to 18 be a series of recommendations on --
19 MR. MYERS: It's a series of options. I 20 think that's what the Commission asked for, some 21 options on how to handle this developing situation 22 that we're faced with. And so that's what we're 23 intending to do, is to give them some options.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, let's go for 25 questions of clarification here. And then we can --
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50 1 when we come back for our first discussion area, let's 2 talk about some of these issues that you've heard.
3 Aubrey.
4 MR. GODWIN: Well, there's a couple of 5 issues that haven't been brought up that probably 6 ought to be mentioned and laid on the table. One of 7 them is FUSRAP, which is a form of NORM, I guess. And 8 it was regulated, now it's not regulated.
9 And who knows what standard it goes to?
10 And is it regulated only by states, or is it regulated 11 by anybody in the Federal Government?
12 And it depends somewhat on the history of 13 how it got to where it is, but it's basically a low 14 concentration of radioactive material that is giving 15 the states a lot of problems.
16 I know it's not part of the charge 17 directed to this committee, but it's something that 18 does impact overall.
19 And secondly, there's the issue of the 20 differing standards at the Federal level in terms of 21 the multiple Federal agencies setting radiation 22 standards on a different legal basis from each other.
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51 1 this exposure standard to the public, whereas another 2 one -- which, last time I took my physics, had the 3 same effect on the person -- having a different 4 exposure that's safe for the public.
5 It's not only confusing to the public, but 6 I'm losing my mind. Well, I know, it wasn't much to 7 lose. But anyway, these things do impact. And I 8 would hope that there would be some way to at least 9 mention this to the Commission in your report, that 10 this kind of effect is distracting not only to the 11 states but I think to the public and to the national 12 priority setting mechanisms.
13 MR. CAMERON: Aubrey, could you just tell 14 us what FUSRAP means in essence?
15 MR. GODWIN: I wish you hadn't asked that.
16 It's Formerly Utilized Site Remedial Action Program.
17 It's old Atomic Energy Commission sites that were used 18 to produce primarily weapons material, I guess.
19 MR. CAMERON: But the point is that there 20 is another twist presented for the NRC-Agreement State 21 regulatory framework by again another special type of 22 material or perhaps that originated from a --
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52 1 to some people's lawyers. And other people don't 2 agree, but that's another issue.
3 MR. CAMERON: All right. And good point 4 here that not only are we looking at a regulatory 5 framework where you're focusing on the states' 6 relationship with the Federal Government, but then 7 there are several Federal agencies who may be setting 8 perhaps differing standards for the same type of 9 materials.
10 Okay. Terry.
11 MR. FRAZEE: I've got a really simple 12 question. How many agreement states do you project?
13 MS. ALLEN: I personally kind of think 14 we'll top out around 40.
15 MR. FRAZEE: So there will always be some 16 states that will not be agreement states. And 17 therefore, in those states in terms of a national 18 program there would always be two regulatory agencies 19 involved?
20 MS. ALLEN: I believe so. But the states 21 that probably won't seek agreement typically don't 22 have very active programs for the NARM material 23 anyway. They don't have very strong radiation 24 protection programs for radioactive material anyway.
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53 1 They may have some emergency planning 2 functions because of reactors in their area and 3 funding for the reactors, and they might do some X-ray 4 things if they can get some funding for it. But 5 without funding or an interest by the states, I don't 6 see it.
7 MR. FRAZEE: In terms of radioactive 8 materials in the context of a national program, is the 9 NRC -- well, is one of the options you're going to 10 work with the one where NRC would seek broader 11 authority that would cover all radioactive materials 12 within a state?
13 MS. ALLEN: That is one of the 14 presumptions that we started off with, that, based on 15 recommendations from the Conference of Radiation 16 Control Program Directors several years ago and the 17 Organization of Agreement States, it seemed like many 18 states were looking towards uniformity in regulating 19 all radioactive material and that NRC should possibly 20 look to seek authority over NARM.
21 And so that is one of the issues that we 22 sort of are discussing in the paper. And that's 23 another issue we'd sort of like some feedback on from 24 people, if they think that that's the direction the 25 NRC should go.
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54 1 NRC has also recently sent out a --
2 they're looking at that internally right now, whether 3 or not they should be regulating NARM. And many 4 people around the table have seen copies of that staff 5 requirements memo. Is that what that was coming out?
6 VOICE: That is correct.
7 MR. FRAZEE: In terms of the larger 8 radiation picture, are you at all considering X-rays?
9 MS. ALLEN: At this point I think there is 10 some mention of -- I thought we talked about 11 mentioning this in the paper. But since NRC's 12 authority doesn't go that far, we're just focusing on 13 radioactive material. I think it was just an aside.
14 MR. FRAZEE: Well, NRC's authority doesn't 15 cover NARM, either.
16 MS. ALLEN: True.
17 MR. FRAZEE: But in terms of a national 18 radiation program -- and that may not be exactly what 19 the Commission was setting out to look at -- but can 20 you expand your horizons a little bit and cover 21 radiation and include not just accelerators -- I mean, 22 obviously can produce radioactive materials -- but --
23 MS. ALLEN: Just all ionizing?
24 MR. FRAZEE: Yes. -- machine produced 25 radiation, all ionizing radiation?
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55 1 MR. MYERS: Terry, I think we've kind of 2 looked at those things and talked about them in terms 3 of working group activities. And I think the best way 4 to characterize it is that what we're looking at is a 5 model that would at some point in time be able to 6 encompass that.
7 Because if you're talking about the NRC 8 taking over let's say things that it doesn't 9 traditionally regulate, it would have to go and get 10 Congressional changes to the AEA to do it.
11 There seemed to be some incentive laid on 12 us by the Commission in their desire to come up, I 13 don't want to say with a quick solution, but a 14 solution that could be used within a very short period 15 of time.
16 And anytime you go down there to change 17 the AEA, number one, you never know what you're going 18 to get out of it. Okay. So you have to take that 19 very carefully.
20 But certainly I think what we have 21 discussed and talked about, we think we're probably 22 able to encompass those things, and then it would be 23 able to grow and expand to accommodate that.
24 MR. CAMERON: And when we get to talking 25 about solutions, we can go into more of this. But I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1 think two important points that Terry brought up, 2 again for those of you who don't know, the NRC has now 3 expressed an interest in seeking legislation to take 4 over regulation of NARM.
5 And the other point that Terry brought up 6 is the question to Kathy, is that we don't anticipate 7 that all of the states are going to be agreement 8 states, so there is always going to be theoretically 9 this residual need for the NRC to be regulating 10 licensees in those states.
11 Kathy, did you want to add one further 12 thing, or Jim, before we go over to Bill?
13 MS. ALLEN: Yes. I just wanted to clarify 14 a couple things. Even though in my heart of hearts I 15 don't think we're going to get 50 agreement states, 16 NRC has asked us several times to cover the 17 possibility of 50 agreement states. That may include 18 requiring states to actually obtain authority over 19 this.
20 So they're not -- this working group is 21 not trying to limit ourselves within what the AEA 22 already authorizes, the Atomic Energy Act. We have 23 broad enough authority to consider things that go 24 beyond Atomic Energy Act issues and things that are 25 currently happening across the country.
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57 1 And when we do that, we do have to 2 identify, though, that this would require legislation 3 or this would not.
4 And so one of the issues is, maybe we 5 should require all of the states to become agreement 6 states or maybe require states to have programs to 7 cover all ionizing radiation. And that's one of the 8 issues that we do have to cover.
9 MR. FRAZEE: Okay. So if there were 50 10 agreement states, there would still be a handful --
11 well, more than a handful of Federal facilities, 12 Federal licensees. Is there a thought --
13 VOICE: And Indian nations.
14 MR. FRAZEE: And Indian nations. Is there 15 a thought that maybe the states would also take over 16 that responsibility? I mean, the point being the 17 smaller the program, the less expertise. And you 18 know, it gets dirt poor pretty soon.
19 Well, how competent -- excuse me -- will 20 NRC be to handle, you know, a very small number of 21 licensees?
22 MR. CAMERON: Let me go to Fred Combs from 23 our Office of State and Tribal Program office.
24 MR. COMBS: I'm Fred Combs. One of the 25 issues that the Commission is obviously concerned with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 is this resourcing knowledge base to effectively and 2 efficiently regulate the dwindling number of licensees 3 that it sees.
4 As such, the working group has been asked 5 to address those issues.
6 Now, there are a number of things that can 7 occur. And some of the things, such as the regulation 8 of Federal licensees by the states requires additional 9 work.
10 In other words, that's a much larger 11 threshold for activity than you would normally 12 require, because then those other Federal licensees 13 may want to have a say in it, and the Department of 14 Justice may want to talk about that issue.
15 So we haven't tackled that particular 16 issue head-on yet. It's a point that I think we can 17 get to a reduction or right-sizing NRC's role and its 18 realm of responsibilities without addressing that 19 issue.
20 It's clearly an option, but it's an option 21 I think that would be a bit farther in the future and 22 would require a lot more coordination than this 23 working group would do.
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59 1 So, yes. We're thinking outside of the 2 box. But understand that what we're looking for is a 3 readily implementable solution.
4 What we were also asked to do was to 5 provide the issue with options that would allow it to 6 be effective if all jurisdictions, which includes also 7 for the stake of agreement status of the District of 8 Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam, were to sign 9 agreements with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
10 And that's the model that we're following.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Fred. And 12 what we're trying to do now is to try to give people 13 an idea of the scope of this effort.
14 And let's go to Bill House and then Bill 15 Passetti, and then we'll come over here to this side 16 of the table to David and Aubrey. Bill.
17 MR. HOUSE: Okay. You know, we need to 18 add another type of radioactive material to this list, 19 and that's radioactive waste, and we'll more specific 20 and call it low-level waste, because the licensees 21 that have radioactive materials all have to follow the 22 radiation safety requirements.
23 But it seems obvious by the regulatory 24 process that waste is more hazardous. Because when 25 you take that beneficial rad material in a product or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 for its primary intended use, it's very beneficial 2 then. But when you throw it into the waste drum, 3 there's a lot more regulatory oversight that's 4 involved.
5 There's various types of permitting for 6 disposal site use permits, transportation permits, you 7 know, reporting requirements which require certain 8 permitting and so forth, and additional inspection 9 requirements on waste itself.
10 So this gets at the heart really of 11 effective and efficient, you know, regulatory 12 processes and oversight for radioactive materials.
13 MR. CAMERON: What you may be suggesting, 14 Bill, is that there may be certain characteristics of 15 the low-level waste regulatory framework that have 16 implications for how this relationship between the 17 Federal Government and the states operates.
18 MR. HOUSE: Sure. And this program should 19 consider the existing and proposed more efficient, in 20 my estimation, requirements on how to manage low-level 21 waste and to regulate waste.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Bill.
23 MR. PASSETTI: I think we may have already 24 gotten close to answering my question. But I was 25 wondering, has your charter or has the NRC put any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 constraints on what your recommendations can be as far 2 as options? Is there anything that they say, You 3 can't go this direction, or is everything open?
4 MS. ALLEN: It's open to the extent that 5 we still have to ensure that we protect public health 6 and safety. But NRC has their strategic plan, and we 7 can't go beyond that.
8 So it's the motherhood and apple pie 9 stuff. I mean, we don't want to increase radiation 10 hazards for the public or for workers or increase any 11 risk to the environment and things like that.
12 MR. PASSETTI: But as far as proposing 13 recommendations as options, you don't have any 14 restrictions on that --
15 MS. ALLEN: No.
16 MR. PASSETTI: -- on how you go about it?
17 MS. ALLEN: Correct. And I think we'll 18 end up with a range of options that they can look at.
19 Because at this point we're not sure how open the 20 Commission is to some of these changes, so we may have 21 some things that are very drastic and some things that 22 are minor tweaks but still will improve the system.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And I think that we 24 would welcome as many suggestions on options as people 25 could give us.
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62 1 MS. ALLEN: Oh, sure. We've gotten a 2 bunch already, and it's still morning.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
4 (General laughter.)
5 MR. CAMERON: And you might want to --
6 since this issue of, what are the boundaries here, 7 everybody in the charter that -- we sent you the 8 charter for this working group.
9 The working group used some screening 10 criteria, okay, that they're going to use to evaluate 11 whatever options come up. Can you just -- I think 12 there's five of them. Can you just reiterate those 13 for people so that they can be thinking about that?
14 MR. MYERS: Let me just take a second, and 15 I'll read those five. And they are in the charter, 16 and, you know, they're pieced together out of the 17 guidance that we received from the Commission.
18 To optimize resources of Federal, state, 19 professional, and industrial organizations; to account 20 for individual agency needs and ability, or you can 21 call that flexibility, if you will.
22 To promote consensus on regulatory 23 priorities. And I guess another way of looking at 24 that would be to say that where there's differences in 25 regulatory requirements between organizations, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 they would somehow kind of be settled on and become 2 more uniform.
3 And that there would be agreement on 4 regulatory priorities.
5 This is one of the issues that the states 6 are keen about because it seems that the agency tends 7 to not only set the goal or set the standard or the 8 type of regulation or the area of regulation that 9 needs to be addressed, and the states need to queue up 10 and follow along behind, but that's not consistent 11 with what the states would like, maybe, to do.
12 I mean, maybe in your state you would want 13 to work on mobile pet [phonetic] issues, and the 14 agency is coming back and saying, No. You've got to 15 stop that and work on Part 71. So that's how that 16 part of it plays out.
17 That there is a promotion of exchange of 18 information. And I think that that's another issue 19 there that talks about consistency and uniformity.
20 If you're talking to the regulated 21 communities, as well as the licensees are talking and 22 exchanging information, we kind of come back in more 23 of a center position and get more uniformity.
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64 1 flexibility among the state and Federal regulators.
2 So that's kind of where that is.
3 And I'd say, too, Bill, that the 4 Commission really didn't place any constraints on us 5 as to what kind of options we could present. Clearly 6 we're limited only by our imagination and the input 7 from folks like yourselves coming to talk to us and 8 give us new ideas.
9 But the practical side of it is that there 10 are some things that you can quickly consider and 11 discard because they're probably not really practical 12 or that they maybe sound good but they're probably 13 totally unworkable given the regulatory history and 14 the culture that we have as regulators; there's things 15 that you're just not comfortable doing.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we'll be getting 17 into some of those things that you're looking at as 18 well as what other people have to suggest. So let's 19 go to David and Aubrey.
20 MR. MINNAAR: I just have a question of 21 clarification. We mentioned this issue on the NRC 22 interest in regulating NARM. And they publicly 23 announced it through this staff requirements 24 memorandum.
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65 1 I was somewhat taken aback by it because 2 it seemed rather revolutionary in terms of NRC's 3 continuing present policy was never to seek further 4 authority under the AEA.
5 I'm wondering, for purposes of 6 clarification, is this an independent action, or is it 7 affiliated with what's going on with the working 8 group? What generated the Commission's statements?
9 MR. CAMERON: Is there anybody who can --
10 I don't know if you guys want to speak to that or --
11 all right. You can. I'm just wondering who is the 12 best person from NRC to answer that question.
13 MS. ALLEN: I believe it came from the 14 Commissioners themselves that actually looked at this.
15 MR. CAMERON: Let's go to Fred.
16 VOICE: Yes. Put Fred on the spot.
17 (General laughter.)
18 MR. COMBS: Yes. That's why I get the big 19 bucks. Actually, it's an independent action. I think 20 what the Commission is concerned with is, how does its 21 regulatory regime fit in with other regulatory 22 regimes, and what consistency or what advantages do 23 you have from having consistent regulations? And 24 that's essentially it.
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66 1 And as has been indicated, there is 2 another group that's been tasked with this study and 3 with these proposals. And that group has been asked 4 to coordinate with the agreement states and with 5 the -- excuse me -- with states and working group.
6 So you should be receiving some questions 7 sometime this spring on that issue concerning pros, 8 cons, and advantages, disadvantages.
9 MR. MINNAAR: Just as a follow-up, I'm 10 also aware that the National Academy of Sciences has 11 been given some charges to look into issues mostly 12 involving radioactive waste management in a broad 13 scope in terms of recommendations on better 14 regulation. Is this in any way associated with that?
15 MR. COMBS: I don't believe it is. I have 16 no indication that it's associated with the waste 17 issues.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And let's go to 19 Aubrey. And then I want -- we have someone who has 20 joined us and who also has something to say about 21 this. Why don't we let Tony introduce himself now?
22 Tony, we've all introduced ourselves, our 23 affiliations, and one or two sentences about interests 24 or concerns. Let's let him do that now, Aubrey, if 25 you don't mind.
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67 1 MR. THOMPSON: My name is Anthony 2 Thompson. I'm with Shaw, Pittman. I represent the 3 National Mining Association Uranium Recovery Producers 4 in matters at NRC and individual licensees there and 5 in agreement states.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Tony.
7 Aubrey, let's go to you, and then we'll go 8 back to Tony if he has something.
9 MR. GODWIN: Yes. I think they probably 10 addressed the question, but I'm not sure.
11 You could, for example, make some 12 recommendations that require additional Congressional 13 action and perhaps even state legal action in terms 14 of, for example, allowing states to band together to 15 form regional compacts to do regulatory affairs so you 16 could get all the 50 states in. You could recommend 17 that as one way to get the additional states in.
18 MS. ALLEN: We didn't have that one yet.
19 But, okay.
20 MR. CAMERON: Then let's put that --
21 MR. GODWIN: I don't know whether it's 22 practical, but it's --
23 MR. CAMERON: We'll put that in the 24 parking lot for discussion later on when we get to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 options. We'll just use the shorthand term that you 2 used, Aubrey, regional compacts. Okay?
3 MR. GODWIN: Not modeled after the low-4 level waste compact.
5 VOICE: There you go, there you go.
6 (General laughter.)
7 VOICE: We don't want to use that as a 8 model.
9 MR. CAMERON: Maybe we shouldn't use the 10 term, compact?
11 MS. McBURNEY: I just have a follow-up 12 question for Fred.
13 MR. CAMERON: All right.
14 MS. McBURNEY: Would this include diffuse 15 NORM, this regulation of NARM --
16 MR. COMBS: That's not been decided yet.
17 MS. McBURNEY: -- or just discreet 18 sources? It hasn't been decided?
19 MR. COMBS: Again, it's open. The 20 Commission has asked essentially, Tell us what the 21 world is like out there, for example.
22 MS. McBURNEY: Okay.
23 VOICE: Cruel.
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69 1 MR. COMBS: And then, make recommendations 2 first with respect to medical NARM and consider 3 possibly other regulations if it makes sense.
4 MR. CAMERON: Can you -- I hate to go down 5 this road because I don't know where it ends. But is 6 it worthwhile telling people what the difference is 7 between discreet NORM and diffuse NORM and, you just 8 used the term medical -- medical NARM. I'm sorry.
9 Can you do that very simply, Ruth, just 10 tell us what the difference is so people know what the 11 implications are?
12 MS. McBURNEY: Basically when you're 13 talking about a discreet source, it's material that's 14 handled like byproduct material, that it is material 15 that you are intentionally wanting to use for its 16 radiological characteristics, such as medical sources, 17 radiopharmaceuticals, industrial sources, et cetera.
18 MR. CAMERON: So medical is equivalent 19 of -- or is one good example of discreet?
20 MS. McBURNEY: Right. Like Cobalt 57.
21 Yes. Right.
22 MR. CAMERON: All right.
23 MS. McBURNEY: Diffuse NORM is what Kathy 24 was talking about, is TENORM, where it's material 25 that's just, in the process of some industrial NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 situation, has gotten concentrated and is not being 2 used for its radiological characteristics, it's just 3 there.
4 MR. CAMERON: All right. Tony, did you 5 have a comment that you wanted to make?
6 MR. THOMPSON: Well, I just -- I think 7 that there are a couple of things going on at the 8 Commission that are related to the NORM, NARM, TENORM 9 types of issues. And you have the FUSRAP thing up 10 there.
11 And during the testimony on the FUSRAP 12 things, the people on the Hill raised the question of 13 regulating things that present like risks in a like 14 fashion, which of course would change the whole 15 definitional basis of the way the Atomic Energy Act or 16 RCRA, for that matter, are.
17 But that I think has opened that issue up.
18 And so NARM and NORM all fit into that.
19 Plus the Commission was looking at whether 20 or not to redefine licensable source material, which 21 is sort of a related issue, because that brings in, 22 you know, stuff now that is not subject to regulation 23 if you lowered from .05, you lowered the license 24 level.
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71 1 All of it is part of this, I think, that's 2 been put on the table in a variety of different 3 contexts, that like-risk things should be regulated 4 similarly and that NORM, that's the same thing as 5 11(e)(2) byproduct material shouldn't be regulated 6 differently, and you can put it in a RCRA cell, or you 7 can do this and that.
8 So I think that's where some of the drive 9 for this is coming from politically.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Tony.
11 Are there any other questions? What I'm 12 going to do during the break is go back and try to do 13 something coherent with some of the things that we've 14 heard so far, not that you weren't coherent.
15 (General laughter.)
16 MR. CAMERON: I knew that sounded wrong.
17 In terms of what I have up here on the flow chart. So 18 I'll do that.
19 But are there any -- we're getting close 20 to our scheduled time for our break. Are there any 21 other questions about the working group and what 22 they're trying to do?
23 I think you can start to get a flavor of 24 what their task is from what has been said around the 25 table and the questions asked.
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72 1 Anybody, any other comments from anybody 2 out in the audience on the context here? Yes. Jim.
3 MR. MARBACH: Jim Marbach. Perhaps I'm 4 naive. But when you say you're losing licensees, I'm 5 trying to appreciate what that means. Does that mean 6 you're losing control as far as regulatory authority 7 is concerned, or do the states become independent 8 and --
9 There's always the impression among people 10 like myself that our local people take care of 11 regulation but they always have to answer to you 12 folks.
13 And so now I'm trying to understand what 14 you -- it's as though your agency is disappearing, and 15 I know that's not the case. But you're losing 16 licensees, and I guess I don't really understand what 17 specifically you mean by that.
18 MR. MYERS: The answer is yes to all of 19 that.
20 (General laughter.)
21 MR. MYERS: Well, not to be funny about 22 it. But it is -- first of all, there is that tendency 23 to lose a regulatory authority over, you know, 24 categories of licensees that are in a new agreement NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 state that have come in. So that's usually the big 2 chunk.
3 But there's also kind of an unstated issue 4 that's been going on at NRC since probably the last 5 ten years or more when we started to charge higher and 6 higher fees, is that NMSS doesn't know it, but we keep 7 book on the licensees in our office just for fun.
8 And what you can really see there is that 9 there is also a steady attrition of licensees from 10 NRC. And that rate, as best we can figure it, is 11 about one licensee every other day. They either 12 consolidate into another license, or they just kind of 13 go out of business, and you lose them all together.
14 And they don't come back. That's part of the issue.
15 So those two things really are what drives 16 the process. There are big chunks from agreement 17 states going where we lose the regulatory control.
18 And then, you just have the normal business process 19 where folks just go out.
20 MR. MARBACH: A fiscal issue.
21 VOICE: Fees?
22 MR. MYERS: Fees is a part of the issue.
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74 1 licenses. What was once three or four licenses, you 2 know, could be down to two.
3 MR. CAMERON: Does everybody understand 4 the fee issue? Do we need to put a finer point on 5 that for people?
6 I mean, I think that -- can you just 7 summarize what the fee issue is in this context of the 8 National Materials working group? I mean, because 9 that may have been one of the Commission's biggest 10 concerns.
11 MR. MYERS: Well, we are full cost 12 recovery basically for the services. And for every 13 category of licensees, there is a particular fee.
14 If you want to say a category, if it's in 15 industrial radiography or if it's a well logger, 16 there's a specific fee that's applied to them based 17 upon the time and effort that's required to regulate 18 them and the amount of inspection activity that's 19 required.
20 So basically those are the things that 21 drive the component. I can't remember -- Fred or 22 somebody help me out -- what's our base rate now?
23 MR. COMBS: 140 an hour.
24 MS. ALLEN: $140 an hour.
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75 1 MR. MYERS: About $140 an hour times the 2 number of hours that it takes to do things.
3 MR. CAMERON: But the fee issue in terms 4 of the working group is what?
5 MR. MYERS: Well, it's perceived that, 6 because the fees increase -- and if you can appreciate 7 the fact that if you had, let's say, ten licensees in 8 a particular category of licenses, if one of them 9 leaves, that raises the rate by about 10 percent to 10 the remaining nine.
11 If you have half of them leave, that rate 12 goes up by 50 percent, because they're going to get 13 charged back -- I mean, this is kind of fundamental.
14 MR. CAMERON: But aren't the -- the NRC 15 has certain responsibilities that -- and Fred, do you 16 want to talk to this point? Do you know what I'm 17 trying to get at?
18 MR. COMBS: Yes. The -- as Jim indicated, 19 actually, we are a 98 percent fee recovery agency.
20 But let me work on that 100 percent, because that's a 21 small difference.
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76 1 into somewhat direct and indirect costs, depending on 2 how the fees are apportioned.
3 But Jim is right, though, as we -- if we 4 can specifically identify a service, a regulatory 5 service that we provide the licensees, then, we're 6 required to as much as possible charge those licensees 7 for that service.
8 So, Donny, if we do a new radiography 9 regulation, the radiographers will bear the cost of 10 that in their fees as a part of the overall fee 11 structure of the agency.
12 The problem is that we have a number of 13 direct resources that go specifically to licensees, 14 and then, there are a bunch of indirect resources that 15 we have to also bill.
16 For example, we will have to do a 17 radiography regulation if we have 1,000 radiographers 18 or 100 radiographers or one radiographer. If the 19 regulation can be attributed to radiographers, we have 20 to charge as well as we can the costs of those fees.
21 Now, obviously that would become 22 unbearable in some classes where you just have a few 23 licensees. So we try to do things to adjust the fees 24 to smooth them over over time to make it easier to 25 accomplish.
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77 1 MR. CAMERON: But the NRC has certain 2 regulatory responsibilities towards the Agreement 3 State Program which are charges -- we have -- the NRC 4 has less and less licensees. Those fewer licensees 5 are still being called on to pay the freight for the 6 Agreement State Program. I mean, isn't that the 7 essence of the problem, Fred?
8 MR. COMBS: That's part of the problem.
9 And that was one of the bases for the fee recovery 10 legislation we were able to receive whereby this 11 fiscal year we take 2 percent off the base budget, 12 next year an additional 2, and so on until we get to 13 a total of 10 percent.
14 And that was to acknowledge that there 15 were a number of things that the agency did that were, 16 quote, in the national interest but not directly 17 related to a specific licensee's action.
18 My office, for example, would be that, 19 international programs, Congressional affairs, the 20 Commission itself, and others.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we'll come back 22 to revisit these issues when we start up again.
23 But I'd like to hear from some people who 24 we haven't heard from before we take a break. And 25 let's start with Kate.
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78 1 MS. ROUGHAN: I was curious. When you 2 present the options at the beginning of May, do you 3 actually have to submit some funding options, too, at 4 that point, or does that come later?
5 MS. ALLEN: We can cover funding, but I 6 think what we'll end up doing is sort of stressing 7 resources, I mean, overall, not specific costs, but 8 costs to NRC and costs to states for different 9 options, whether the options will actually decrease 10 the resource requirements, because that could be 11 staffing or personnel.
12 But it's going to be very difficult for us 13 to tell states how to get their funding and NRC how to 14 get their funding.
15 MR. CAMERON: Does that answer your 16 question for now?
17 MS. ROUGHAN: Yes. Yes.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Mike, and 19 then we'll go to Bob. Mike Veiluva.
20 MR. VEILUVA: Well, I just have a basic 21 question. What is the reporting infrastructure right 22 now for those licensees which have dropped into an 23 agreement state and you've, quote, lost, unquote? Do 24 they directly still report or submit some sort of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 reporting to the NRC, or is that just funneled through 2 the agreement state, or none at all?
3 MS. ALLEN: In many cases, that reporting 4 doesn't go back to the -- when you're a licensee in a 5 state that becomes an agreement state, then, you are 6 then regulated by that state.
7 MR. VEILUVA: Completely?
8 MS. ALLEN: Completely. And you deal with 9 that state.
10 If the state has to report information 11 back to the NRC, then, they will go back to their 12 licensees and get it. But --
13 MR. VEILUVA: That's the only mechanism --
14 MS. ALLEN: -- that's very rare, because 15 at this point it's just incident reporting.
16 MR. CAMERON: And then, I think that we 17 need to make sure that -- Fred, when you do your thing 18 in the next --
19 MR. COMBS: I'll complicate the matter, 20 Mike. Okay?
21 MR. VEILUVA: It's already fantastically 22 complicated.
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80 1 we'll get to that. And Duncan, that's what you were 2 concerned with?
3 MR. WHITE: Yes.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Bob.
5 Bob.
6 MR. LEOPOLD: A couple questions. Kathy, 7 you mentioned one option would be to force all 50 8 states to be agreement states? Do you currently have 9 that authority?
10 MS. ALLEN: No.
11 MR. LEOPOLD: So that would be something 12 that you would have to --
13 MS. ALLEN: That's just out there, 14 thinking beyond what we're doing today.
15 MR. CAMERON: When you said -- can you 16 clarify, when you said, Do you have that authority, do 17 you mean the working group have that authority?
18 MR. LEOPOLD: Does the NRC currently have 19 that authority?
20 MR. CAMERON: To have every agreement 21 state --
22 MR. LEOPOLD: To require states --
23 MR. CAMERON: -- every state be an 24 agreement state?
25 MR. LEOPOLD: Yes.
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81 1 MS. ALLEN: No.
2 MR. CAMERON: Oh. To require them? Okay.
3 MS. ALLEN: No. Currently becoming an 4 agreement state is strictly a voluntary move on the 5 part of the state. If the state chooses to become an 6 agreement state and sign an agreement, they just go 7 ahead and do it. There is no requirement, and NRC 8 cannot come back and force a state to become an 9 agreement state.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Mark.
11 MR. DORUFF: I'll be very brief. Mark 12 Doruff with CORAR.
13 Two applications of radioactive materials 14 that I think we neglected to mention back before, when 15 we were listening.
16 One would be the practice of regulation 17 of, in some quantity, distribution of byproduct 18 materials remains with NRC even in agreement states.
19 And the other would be the regulation of 20 export of radioactive waste. That also is under the 21 jurisdiction of NRC and not agreement states.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Fred, do you want 23 to -- you probably might go into that.
24 MR. COMBS: Yes. I'll also address that 25 as a part of mine.
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82 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Mark.
2 Do we -- are we ready for -- I think we 3 probably are ready for our break. Ellis -- again, 4 Fred, can we give Ellis this mic? I don't know if he 5 needs it, but just in case he does.
6 MR. MERSCHOFF: I had to step out for a 7 minute, so I apologize if this question was asked.
8 But I heard a lot about consistency.
9 And in the engineering world, the question 10 of consistency across the 50 states was largely 11 addressed through the consensus standards process, 12 with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 13 IEEE, ANS, American National Standards Institute.
14 And then, Federal agencies, the NRC being 15 one of them, can endorse in regulations certain 16 standards to impose a consistency that the national 17 consensus standards develop.
18 My question is, is there an active 19 consensus standards process with the materials and 20 radiation control area?
21 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Ellis. I think 22 you've raised --
23 MR. MERSCHOFF: It was on you, which is 24 why -- now that I'm fully trained, the next time I'll 25 use the mic.
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83 1 MR. CAMERON: Could you repeat it?
2 Because we didn't hear it.
3 (General laughter.)
4 MR. CAMERON: There is another actor, so 5 to speak, in this whole mix of agencies, levels of 6 government, consensus standards organizations.
7 Jim or Kathy, do you want to respond to 8 what Ellis said?
9 MR. MYERS: Well, first of all, the NRC is 10 required by Federal law to look at consensus 11 standards, as you well know, and to adopt them if 12 they're applicable. So that's something that the 13 agency has to do under law.
14 There are some examples that we've come 15 across of adoptions of consensus standards like ANSI 16 standards for irradiators, sealed sources and devices.
17 Radiography is another area where there have been 18 adoption of generally consensus standards that have 19 been used.
20 But in terms of regulatory programs and 21 kind of those esoteric things out there, I don't know 22 of any that have gone that far.
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84 1 I mean. And it has probably done more to make some 2 degree of consistency applicable across a large area.
3 MS. ALLEN: But in many of the areas that 4 we regulate, there are no standards out there. We 5 haven't really expressed a need or an interest to the 6 standard setting organizations to establish standards, 7 so they don't create any, so we don't use them, so 8 they're not out there, so we can't reference them. So 9 we just haven't been talking to one another.
10 MR. CAMERON: And I guess that one part of 11 what could come out of the National Materials Program 12 is to talk to one another more effectively about these 13 issues?
14 MR. MYERS: One of the things unmentioned 15 was that the Commission also asked us to talk with 16 standard setting organizations, make them aware of 17 this process and see how they could fit into it. And 18 I think we're kind of addressing that issue, too. So 19 we'd be welcome to ideas and thoughts about that.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's take just the 21 remaining cards here, and then we'll take a break and 22 come back. But let's go to Ruth, John, and then to 23 Donny.
24 MS. McBURNEY: Yes. I was going to bring 25 this up later. But of course, the Health Physics NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 Society has its standards working groups that work on 2 specific ANSI standards, I mean, with the intent that 3 they finally do become ANSI standards, and would be 4 willing to approach some sort of joint effort with 5 priorities in developing consensus standards that 6 might be needed.
7 For example, there is a NORM standards 8 working group, and I know in CRCPD there is a group 9 working on NORM. If they could somehow combine their 10 efforts, it might be more efficient.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. John, and then we'll 12 go to Donny.
13 MR. HICKEY: John Hickey. I see the issue 14 with consistency as not whether a standard exists but 15 whether NRC and all of the states all agree to 16 implement the standard.
17 One effort we have is to standardize 18 regulations, which is a joint NRC and state effort.
19 And I'm not sure if other parties are involved.
20 Also, when we put our regulations out, we 21 designate what are called levels of compatibility.
22 And some of the levels of compatibility do not require 23 the states to implement the regulation or the concept 24 behind the regulation exactly the way NRC does it.
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86 1 So there is some effort on the one hand to 2 make things consistent, but there's also an allowance 3 by the system for the states to choose to be 4 inconsistent to some degree.
5 So it's not a question of whether there's 6 a standard there. The states can choose to do things 7 exactly the way NRC does them if they want to have 8 consistency. But in some cases the states don't 9 choose to do that for a variety of reasons.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that, 11 John. Let's -- final comment before the break, Donny.
12 And then, if we need to catch up on any other 13 questions when we come back, we'll do that. Donny.
14 MR. DICHARRY: Donny Dicharry. And I'd 15 like to ask Kathy and Jim about the degree to which 16 the working group has sought the input from industry 17 up to this point. I know that for this particular 18 meeting industry representatives have been invited.
19 But has there been any prior activities to seek input 20 from industry prior to this?
21 MR. MYERS: Yes. There has been a small 22 effort to try to get information from industry or 23 groups out there. We have had several adventures with 24 the standard setting organizations through the NRC's 25 working group with them.
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87 1 But to tell you the truth, I think at this 2 point until today, the results have been meager, not 3 necessarily on our part necessarily, but I think it's 4 because there really wasn't enough of a product or 5 conceptual idea that people could kind of get a grip 6 on to understand how it would affect them or visualize 7 how it would affect them.
8 So it's at an appropriate point now, I 9 think, to look at those things and to get more 10 industry input into it and so forth now that we have 11 something we can really kind of talk about.
12 MS. ALLEN: I think most of us are health 13 physicists, so we've been going through the Health 14 Physics Society. We had some articles in one of the 15 newsletters.
16 And many of the members of the working 17 group have gone to their own local Chapters and had 18 workshops and lists of questions and solicited 19 feedback from their members, who mostly are licensees 20 and representatives of the health physics or radiation 21 safety industry.
22 So it has not been highly choreographed, 23 but it has occurred, but in smaller venues, not in 24 national venues.
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88 1 MR. MYERS: We have really done quite a 2 lot in terms of outreach issues. I mean, we've 3 performed presentations at the various regional 4 offices; we've done it at NRC Headquarters; we've done 5 it at HPS in different areas; the OAS meeting, we did 6 that -- what is it, NERC in New England?
7 VOICE: Yes.
8 MR. MYERS: There was presentations there.
9 And frankly, you know, everything that we've done has 10 always been open, and we've put it up on the Internet, 11 we've announced it and everything.
12 And to be honest, I mean, the public 13 participation to a great degree has been very, very 14 minimal. There's been a few phone calls. We've had 15 a few people from the public that have attended.
16 And they go, Well, this is all very nice 17 and good, but get back to us when you've got more 18 information or something.
19 MR. CAMERON: Can we put one of the issues 20 for tomorrow morning -- I think that the working group 21 might appreciate -- although, of course, it has to 22 work into their schedule or some future schedule.
23 But can we put, How can the working group 24 and/or the Commission get more input from licensee 25 organizations, citizen groups? Can we have a specific NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 discussion on that tomorrow? There may be some 2 suggestions.
3 MR. MYERS: Sure.
4 MR. CAMERON: All right. Let's take a 5 break. And that clock says about 20 after. Why don't 6 we try to start up at 20 to 11:00, 20 minutes to 7 11:00?
8 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I think we'll get 10 started. I tried to weed out some of the issues that 11 we're going to be talking about from the parking lot.
12 And I -- there were four that I left up 13 there. One is this outreach, access to decision-14 making, okay, the public, nongovernmental 15 organizations, licensees, associations, and not only 16 on working group activities.
17 In other words, how do you comment, how do 18 you gain access to what the working group is doing?
19 But on the regulatory actions of the individual 20 agreement states, the NRC, whatever option comes out 21 of the working group, that's going to be an issue for 22 consideration, is, what are the implications for 23 access to the decision-makers?
24 So that's one issue I think that we need 25 to spend more time on.
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90 1 Aubrey's regional entities, okay, as a 2 potential option, sub-option.
3 Kate brought up the funding issue. And I 4 put funding of options rather than funding options, 5 because I thought that's what you meant.
6 MS. ROUGHAN: Funding of options. Yes.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And role of consensus 8 standards and consensus standards organizations. And 9 you know, Ruth already offered something from the 10 Health Physics Society standpoint.
11 But in terms of what I've put up here as 12 problems, needs, opportunities -- and some of this is 13 just data, it's a phenomenon that's happening and that 14 may be causing problems or may be presenting 15 opportunities that could be capitalized on to achieve 16 health and safety efficiency, whatever.
17 But dwindling number of NRC licensees.
18 And as Jim pointed out, not only the number of 19 licensees but types of licensees are disappearing from 20 NRC's radar screen.
21 Fewer NRC licensees carrying the burden of 22 NRC-Agreement State activities. And as Fred pointed 23 out, there is some statutory relief that may be coming 24 on that. But it still seems to be an issue as I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 remember the Commission's formulation about this 2 working group.
3 And the co-chairs, did I forget to tell 4 you that you're not allowed to speak to this? Put 5 those name tents down.
6 (General laughter.)
7 MR. CAMERON: All right. But, yes. Let 8 me -- we'll get comment, okay, on this. Because I 9 don't want to characterize this in my own frame; it 10 has to be what you guys are saying.
11 More expertise is now concentrated in 12 agreement states. That's an opportunity.
13 Continuing need for NRC activities for 14 non-agreement state licensees, NRC's overarching 15 activities, which is an issue here about how much are 16 the agreement states getting to be involved in those 17 overarching activities?
18 NRC exclusive activities, I think Mark 19 pointed out a couple of those. And Fred is going to 20 talk to that in a minute.
21 Special needs in individual states. They 22 may have particular types of licensees or problems.
23 And you know, the flip side of that, going back to 24 Jim's disappearing types of licensees, NRC may have 25 less interest in some activities.
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92 1 There's many actors. These are some of 2 the complicating factors. We talked about NRC 3 agreement states, non-agreement states, CRCPD, OAS, 4 other Federal agencies, consensus standards 5 organizations -- the Health Physics Society functions 6 in that mode. Sometimes there's other consensus 7 standards organizations --
8 MR. KILLAR: Chip, would you mind adding 9 licensees to that list? It would be nice.
10 MR. CAMERON: Yes. I wasn't -- notice, 11 Felix, this isn't a list of stakeholders. I'm sorry.
12 This is not the method. But I'll put -- and we're 13 going to get you your -- I know you have a tee-shirt.
14 But, no. I don't mean to exclude what we sometimes 15 call stakeholders. This is like mainly governmental, 16 quasi-governmental.
17 But good point. Non-governmental 18 organizations. Okay. Many actors, we'll just leave 19 it like that.
20 Many materials. AEA -- and Bill made a 21 point on low-level waste. We've had all sorts of NARM 22 and NORM discussions. FUSRAP was brought up.
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93 1 comprehensive coverage of materials. Conflicting 2 regulations leads into consistency, uniformity, and 3 differing statutory requirements.
4 Whatever option comes out of this, the 5 Federal Government, the NRC, may have statutory 6 obligations that the agreement states don't have.
7 One of the ones that was mentioned was 8 this Consensus Standards -- I forget what the name of 9 the act is. But maybe Jim Lieberman or someone can 10 tell us that. But it was like the National Technology 11 whatever.
12 But it puts certain obligations on the 13 Federal Government in terms of adopting consensus 14 standards that's's not necessarily derivative to the 15 states. So there are different statutory 16 requirements.
17 Now, Felix already -- let me go and ask 18 you before we get Fred up here. We're going to 19 discuss these, but tell me where they're wrong. Okay?
20 As Felix noted, I didn't mean to exclude 21 licensees and others. Okay? So many actors.
22 All right. You guys both put your cards 23 up on --
24 MS. ALLEN: 2.
25 MR. MYERS: Number 2.
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94 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
2 MR. MYERS: I'll try to address the issue 3 that we have with it, is that the way that it's 4 worded, it implies that the agreement states and the 5 licensees have a -- you know, they're increasing the 6 financial burden or something upon the remaining NRC 7 licensees. That's not exactly correct, we think.
8 Basically, yes. There is a burden that 9 fewer licensees bear. But there's a lot of programs 10 at NRC that are not funded outside of the fee base, 11 like international programs, Congressional affairs, 12 among other things. And STP is one of those programs.
13 We concede that.
14 But I think what it's probably -- if 15 you're going to put it like that, you also need to put 16 a bullet in there that says that the agreement states 17 and their licensees also contribute to the agency's 18 program, because they bring in a certain amount of 19 knowledge, experience; we use them in working groups 20 and other activities.
21 And we rely heavily on them today to help 22 us run our diminishing program.
23 So it's, I don't want to say a quid pro 24 quo, but there certainly is an interesting 25 relationship that's there.
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95 1 Yes. It's a little bit of a cost, but at 2 the same time there is a Hell of a lot of benefit.
3 Gee, I didn't mean to say, Hell of a lot. But there's 4 a heck of a lot of benefit -- I forget that lady's got 5 that recorder running -- that these folks bring to the 6 agency that really improve substantially our 7 regulatory program.
8 And, yes. There's a cost. But there's 9 also a huge benefit to it.
10 MR. CAMERON: Yes. And I hear what you're 11 saying. And I'll put that up here.
12 But in terms of this -- forgetting for the 13 moment what these countervailing or corresponding 14 benefits might be, this is incorrect in the sense that 15 it's not only agreement states' activities, it's --
16 MS. ALLEN: It's the whole agency's 17 activities.
18 MR. MYERS: Right.
19 MR. CAMERON: Pardon me, Kathy?
20 MS. ALLEN: It's the whole agency's 21 activities. The agreement state portion, oversight 22 portion, is an incredibly small portion of the entire 23 NRC budget.
24 MR. MINNAAR: Why don't you just scratch 25 out "agreement state" and replace it with "materials"?
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96 1 VOICE: Indirect costs might be another 2 suggestion.
3 MR. CAMERON: Indirect activities?
4 VOICE: Just NRC activities.
5 MR. MYERS: Right. There's a whole mix of 6 things that go into it. It's not --
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right.
8 MR. THOMPSON: Except that the NRC 9 licensees in the uranium recovery areas wouldn't agree 10 with that. They find the agreement state -- paying 11 for the agreement states who charge less fees while 12 they're paying what they consider exorbitant fees to 13 NRC both for oversight of the specific license and for 14 the general licensing fees, they find any payment to 15 the agreement states to be unreasonable.
16 Because the agreement state fees are so 17 much less, they find themselves at a disadvantage with 18 similar activities regulated in agreement states. So 19 they wouldn't agree with that.
20 MR. CAMERON: They would want to emphasize 21 the point that's captured in here.
22 MR. THOMPSON: It's a political point.
23 It's captured in there. And there are other costs, 24 you're absolutely right, that they don't like either.
25 But --
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97 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
2 MS. ALLEN: But the stuff that they're 3 paying for in fees to NRC, the portion -- I mean, in 4 NRC's budget space, the portion that goes to office of 5 state programs for NRC oversight of agreement states 6 is incredibly small compared to what they spend on 7 research and on the other things that they pay for.
8 So when licensees pay their fees, if you 9 were to take that fee, then, it's a minuscule amount 10 compared to what -- I mean, there are a lot of other 11 things that fees go towards, not necessarily the 12 agreement state oversight.
13 MR. MYERS: But I think, Tony, we 14 recognize your point.
15 MR. THOMPSON: It's a very sensitive 16 point.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to any 18 further comment on this. We're not going to -- we're 19 going to discuss these after Fred is done.
20 But is there anything that I didn't 21 capture from this morning or that's incorrect up here?
22 Bob.
23 MR. LEOPOLD: Well, I would like to add 24 something, and that is, while I appreciate that this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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98 1 is the NRC group working on this, it really isn't 2 large enough to address some of the problems we have.
3 Where is EPA? Where is DOE? Because if 4 we're really going to do up the whole picture, we need 5 those folks at the table, too.
6 You've got states here, you've got 7 licensees, but you don't have the other Federal 8 players participating. And that's to me a significant 9 problem.
10 MR. CAMERON: And we -- FDA could not --
11 MR. LEOPOLD: And I understand that EPA 12 may come tomorrow. But --
13 MR. CAMERON: Yes. But that's a broader 14 point, though, isn't it?
15 MR. LEOPOLD: The big picture is, there's 16 seeming to me a lack of cooperation and coordination 17 between Federal agencies.
18 MR. CAMERON: We can put that down as a 19 specific point. And it's one that Aubrey alluded to 20 before. Lack of coordination and cooperation among 21 Federal agencies.
22 MR. LEOPOLD: You don't even use the same 23 language.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
25 MR. LEOPOLD: Thank you.
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99 1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Bob.
2 Anybody else on any of these issues that 3 we've talked about?
4 Again, we're going to go back. And this 5 is hopefully going to be for the benefit of the 6 working group in terms of identification of what the 7 problems and opportunities are here.
8 But let's go to Fred. Fred, do you want 9 to give us an overview of NRC?
10 MR. COMBS: Yes. What I'd like to do is 11 provide some additional context with respect to the 12 particular nature of arrangements between the NRC and 13 states which have individual agreements with the NRC.
14 And those of you around the table should 15 find copies of the slides that I want to speak from.
16 First of all, just to mention in passing, 17 the ability to enter into an agreement is contained in 18 Section 274 of the Atomic Energy Act. And as such, we 19 define an agreement state is any state which has 20 entered into such an agreement.
21 Then, the significant difference, the 22 first significant difference with these agreements 23 between the NRC and the states is that this is not a 24 delegated program. And I repeat, this is not a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 1 delegated program. States operate under state law to 2 implement the agreement program.
3 What the NRC actually does is discontinue 4 its authority for certain classes of material and 5 certain users of material and certain activities and 6 allows states to regulate in those areas.
7 The string attached to this, the first 8 string, is that NRC then gets to periodically review 9 those agreement states for their adequacy, which is an 10 obvious thing or relatively obvious, and for something 11 called compatibility, which is a lot less obvious. It 12 conveys the sense of consistency between regulatory 13 bodies.
14 If you go from an NRC state to an 15 agreement state to another agreement state as a 16 licensee, the hope is that you will see a very similar 17 structure. Obviously it's not as satisfying as we 18 would think.
19 And of course, the other string is that 20 NRC has the ability to suspend all or part of an 21 agreement in an emergency.
22 The things that the NRC does provide is 23 regulation of byproduct, as Felix indicated, source or 24 special nuclear material. An agreement state could be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 1 a state that would agree to allow them to regulate 2 one, two, or all of these categories of materials.
3 The NRC, then, retains authority over 4 Federal agencies for their uses; production and 5 utilization facilities, which are essentially nuclear 6 reactors and their fuel cycle facilities.
7 Exports and imports. And the way we do 8 that is for the main course we indicate that, if you 9 have a license from an agreement state or the NRC, you 10 are authorized to export or import material, depending 11 on certain security issues and going to certain 12 places.
13 The NRC regulates disposal of radioactive 14 material in the ocean. We haven't seen a lot of 15 activity there for obvious reasons. We thank you for 16 that, though.
17 (General laughter.)
18 MR. COMBS: And also, high-level waste 19 handling and disposal is subject to NRC regulation, 20 not agreement state.
21 As was also indicated by one of the 22 persons around the table, the NRC authorizes the 23 transfer of materials to persons who are exempt from 24 regulation, which means that this is one area of, 25 quote, coregulation.
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102 1 A licensee in Illinois, for example, who 2 wants to distribute a particular device to persons 3 exempt needs a license from Illinois to possess the 4 materials and manufacture the product, and it needs a 5 license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 6 distribute that product.
7 MS. ALLEN: But you only need a license 8 from NRC to distribute it if it's AEA material.
9 MR. COMBS: Right.
10 MS. ALLEN: If you're distributing NARM, 11 we do it.
12 MR. COMBS: Again I go back to the source, 13 byproduct, special nuclear material, or some 14 combination thereof.
15 And what is listed on here euphemistically 16 as large quantities of special nuclear material, we've 17 addressed that issue. It's any more than 350 grams of 18 special nuclear material. NRC reserves the right to 19 regulate that.
20 NRC also reserves the right to regulate 21 activities in off-shore waters. Although in the past 22 we had entered into a subagreement with Louisiana to 23 do that, Louisiana has since returned that authority 24 to the NRC.
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103 1 And of course, the NRC as part of its 2 authority regulates certain aspects of mill tailings 3 management, mainly the closure of mill sites.
4 Not included in my sheet, and to make this 5 part a little more interesting, are the optional 6 things that states get to regulate.
7 Because in that category of source, 8 special nuclear, and byproduct material, the states 9 can elect to regulate low-level waste or not regulate 10 low-level waste.
11 The states can elect to review sealed 12 sources or devices or not do sealed sources and 13 devices. And those can be returned back to the 14 Nuclear Regulatory Commission upon request of the 15 Government.
16 And states can agree to regulate uranium 17 mill tailings or not to regulate uranium mill 18 tailings.
19 An additional dimension of the 20 relationship is that there are certain things that 21 don't convey to the states automatically. These are 22 Federal requirements that the NRC is obligated to 23 follow; the states don't necessarily have to follow 24 them.
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104 1 Examples would be NEPA, the Administrative 2 Procedure Act. States have their own administrative 3 procedures, do their own rules. The Federal 4 requirements don't necessarily convey.
5 Government in the Sunshine Act, and one 6 thing that's been of some interest to us is GPRA, in 7 addition to the requirement to at least review 8 consensus standards and consider their adoption if you 9 have to move into that same area.
10 So these are things that continue to, 11 let's say make the entry into agreement state status 12 even more interesting.
13 Why enter into an agreement? Well, it 14 fulfills the intent of Section 274, which will allow 15 the states to regulate in protecting the public health 16 and safety in areas where they traditionally regulate.
17 The other thing is that state radiation 18 control agencies regulate all radiation sources, not 19 just some AEA materials. Therefore, they are closer 20 to their licensees, there is more of a service that 21 can probably be provided to those licensees 22 understanding local conditions.
23 In addition to that, it enhances the core 24 of knowledge that states have by regulating these 25 materials, and it gives a lot of users a single NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 1 regulatory agency except for these things on the 2 previous page that I talked about.
3 Obviously a disadvantage is that states 4 have to establish a governmental organization to 5 regulate, and some licensees may still be regulated by 6 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
7 And the most significant point is, it 8 requires a lot of coordination between NRC and the 9 states. And this is the topic of my next issue.
10 Because of the fact that the NRC's 11 knowledge base is not all inclusive, we have moved 12 towards developing more of our regulatory products, 13 which are rules, licensing guidance, inspection 14 guidance, and user guidance, in a collaborative 15 manner.
16 We've got about 25 separate working groups 17 with NRC and agreement state staffs working on any 18 number of issues from as broad as this particular 19 issue that we're dealing with, which is, what should 20 be the shape of the NRC, to more focused issues 21 regarding a particular regulation.
22 We share knowledge of unusual events and 23 abnormal occurrences, because what happens in one 24 jurisdiction could very well affect what happens in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 1 another jurisdiction. There are things as sentinel 2 events.
3 If a device fails, we'd like to know that 4 and can gain information from California to share with 5 people in Massachusetts or to share with the Nuclear 6 Regulatory Commission to look for generic defects.
7 We also share sealed source and device 8 evaluation sheets, which is essentially a shortcut way 9 for a manufacturer to have a product approved by one 10 regulatory jurisdiction and to have that product 11 acceptable for licensing in other regulatory 12 jurisdictions.
13 We also coordinate training, and we 14 conduct, as we are doing here, a number of workshops 15 and meetings to assure that the level of coordination 16 is appropriate.
17 My office is solely dedicated to that 18 relationship and easing the communications between the 19 NRC materials regulators and state materials 20 regulators, not just agreement state, but all state 21 regulators.
22 And that's essentially the context that we 23 find ourselves in now.
24 I've described what appears to me to be at 25 least a confusing allonge of things. And it's how we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 1 operate within that allonge that makes the programs 2 effective.
3 And what we're looking for now is a better 4 way of operating given two factors: one, a declining 5 licensee population for the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission; and two, an increase in knowledge outside 7 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or Atomic Energy 8 Commission of regulations and regulators and 9 practices.
10 We lost access to UCLA Medical Center in 11 1962, for example. We don't know what happens there.
12 But there have been a lot of things developed that we 13 were not first aware of.
14 Are there questions? Yes.
15 MR. VEILUVA: You've raised several 16 intriguing points. You mentioned that the regulatory 17 agency is closer to the licensees and can be generally 18 more responsive.
19 Right now I take it there's no formal 20 structure in place for critiquing state programs so 21 that across -- is there one, is there not one?
22 Because one issue which has come up in 23 people I've talked to is whether a potential licensee, 24 someone who is interested, say, in opening a medical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 1 technology facility that uses licensed materials, can 2 they shop for a state?
3 Can you pick out the best agreement state 4 with the best standards and perhaps the laxest 5 enforcement? And is there a body of knowledge that 6 one can go to to find that out?
7 MR. COMBS: I hope not.
8 (General laughter.)
9 MR. COMBS: We do have a fairly highly 10 developed tool which we call the INPEP Program, which 11 is essentially the Integrated Performance Evaluation 12 Program, that we use to evaluate performance of NRC 13 regions and agreement states.
14 And this tool is a performance-based tool.
15 It talks about how well let's say a jurisdiction 16 inspects, the status of its inspection program, how 17 well it writes a license, the status of the training 18 and experience of its staff, and how it responds to 19 incidents and allegations. We have to make a 20 determination of adequacy and compatibility, an 21 overall determination.
22 So you can perhaps shop around for a, 23 quote, lax state. But that state is going to meet the 24 floor requirement for safety; it has to.
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109 1 MR. VEILUVA: Now, if I can ask a follow-2 up question. How transparent is that process? Is 3 that publicly available?
4 MR. COMBS: That process is extremely 5 publicly available. All our procedures for conducting 6 an INPEP are on the NRC's Website.
7 In addition to that, following the INPEP 8 review, the INPEP team, which is composed of NRC and 9 agreement state staffs, then meet with a management 10 review board, again composed of senior NRC managers 11 and an agreement state manager, in a public meeting to 12 discuss their findings.
13 The draft INPEP reports and the final 14 INPEP reports are on the Website. You can look and 15 evaluate them.
16 I understand that there are other 17 practices which may make it easier or more difficult 18 for a given business to establish itself in a state, 19 but it won't be on the basis of safety if our program 20 works.
21 MR. CAMERON: Mark, did you want to 22 comment on Mike's question?
23 MR. DORUFF: Yes. I just want to comment 24 from a user's perspective and a licensee's 25 perspective.
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110 1 First of all, I think that most users 2 don't really have any -- really don't have much of a 3 choice as to what type of regulatory scheme they're 4 subject to, because you've got to have hospitals and 5 you've got to have -- there are academic institutions 6 all over the country.
7 But from a manufacturer and distributor's 8 point of view, I think it is actually in their best 9 interests to be located in a state or a region where 10 you have perhaps the most rigorous and comprehensive 11 regulation, because you are then able to deal with the 12 myriad of other individual, unique regulations 13 throughout the country.
14 You're subject to a number of specific 15 requirements that if you were in a state that wasn't 16 regulated like, for example, a state where they don't 17 regulate NARM if you are a NARM manufacturer, you 18 would be at a disadvantage because you would not be 19 able to get your products registered, you would not 20 have the context in the individual states and other 21 individual regions where you want to do business.
22 So I think that that problem really takes 23 care of itself. I don't think that a major 24 manufacturer would seek a location where regulation 25 didn't exist or where it was relatively lax.
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111 1 MR. CAMERON: Dwight.
2 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes. I had a question 3 for Fred. On his list of things about what the NRC 4 regulates and doesn't regulate, he left off Aubrey's 5 issue regarding Indian tribal land. And I just 6 wondered if he had anything he'd like to say about 7 that right now.
8 MR. GODWIN: Yes. I'd be happy to say 9 something about it. Tribal lands in Arizona we 10 believe are the state's except for the tribes 11 themselves, tribes being a Federal type entity.
12 Now, if that's shared, I understand, by 13 all of your attorneys. But that's what our attorney 14 says, and I have to follow my attorney.
15 MR. COMBS: And what our attorneys have 16 said is that on tribal lands there is a presumption of 17 Federal authority. And we'll just start the 18 discussion specifically based on that presumption.
19 But we're willing to talk about it.
20 MR. CAMERON: Another actor has been put 21 in here, tribal --
22 MR. GODWIN: We do have these differences 23 from time to time.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Dwight. Aubrey, 25 did you have a separate point?
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112 1 MR. GODWIN: Well, I was going to go back 2 to this shopping around. There have been occasions 3 when we've had calls come in from different potential 4 applicants wanting to find out what our requirements 5 were. If it's on AEA materials, the description 6 provided by Fred pretty well applies.
7 There is a 19-volume licensing 8 comprehendium that's out that guides you through what 9 all you have to ask and follow when you get ready to 10 issue a license. And that's starts addressing most of 11 the questions.
12 When you get into a point where something, 13 you know, does not seem to be clearly addressed, then 14 you start talking to your compadres in other states 15 and in other jurisdictions, and you find out if 16 anybody else is licensed. If you're the first one 17 down the pike, then you usually stop and get the best 18 advice you can.
19 And I think all the states I've been 20 associated with and know about, the telephone is a 21 pretty handy instrument for research.
22 And nobody wants to make a mistake on the 23 first one, the first time you write a license. You 24 know, you might do it, but you want to make sure you 25 did everything you could to avoid that.
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113 1 So shopping around, as pointed out 2 earlier, is not really that practical if they really 3 want to do business elsewhere, because if they end up 4 in the easier ones, like in NORM stuff, there have 5 been several companies that have essentially limited 6 themselves to one or two states by going the NORM 7 route.
8 So it looks good on the surface, but it's 9 not very good as a practical matter. Thank you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Aubrey. Kate, do 11 you have something on that?
12 MS. ROUGHAN: Yes. Two separate comments.
13 One on the shopping around, a significant decision 14 there is the fees. The NRC NSSDR for device 15 registration was $10,000 annually. If you have 20 or 16 30 devices registered, that's a significant chunk of 17 money.
18 Once we became an agreement state, it went 19 down to $2,000 annually. So that is something that 20 people do look at from a new company perspective.
21 MR. GODWIN: Yes. Now, that shopping 22 around they do.
23 MS. ROUGHAN: Oh, they'll shop around.
24 Yes. You have to do it that way.
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114 1 The second comment was that the NRC 2 retains authority over Type B manufacturing, 3 distribution, also, and transportation.
4 MR. COMBS: Actually, with respect to 5 transportation of containers, the NRC has entered into 6 an agreement with the Department of Transportation to 7 review Type B and large-quantity containers. And it 8 hasn't conveyed that agreement at all as a part of its 9 agreement with the states.
10 That does cover, however, radiography 11 devices with the Type B containers. But that's 12 authority that the NRC gets not from the act but from 13 an agreement with DOT.
14 MR. CAMERON: Aubrey.
15 MR. GODWIN: Yes. As we talk about exempt 16 materials, I think some fine lines get involved.
17 The agreement states can authorize the 18 distribution of exempt quantities, but they cannot 19 authorize the distribution of exempt devices.
20 And that sometimes causes confusion 21 because the devices, exit signs and things like that, 22 you get the distribution license from the NRC.
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115 1 does come up occasionally and cause an interesting 2 problem, a publicity problem.
3 MR. COMBS: Thanks, Aubrey.
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Are we done with 5 Fred for the moment in terms of context?
6 MR. COMBS: I'll remain here.
7 (General laughter.)
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Stay with us.
9 And where we are on the agenda is to try 10 to explore some of either the phenomena -- are you 11 cold?
12 VOICE: Yes.
13 VOICE: Freezing.
14 MR. CAMERON: Do we want some heat in 15 here?
16 VOICE: Yes.
17 MR. CAMERON: All right.
18 (Pause.)
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We turned it up.
20 Ellis got the -- did you get the energy saving award 21 last year? But they had to carry people out.
22 (General laughter.)
23 MR. MERSCHOFF: The average temperature is 24 70. It's 110 in the summer, and it's 40 in the 25 winter.
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116 1 (General laughter.)
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
3 I think we need to explore for the working 4 group's benefit some of these issues that we have 5 talked about. How big a problem are some of these 6 issues? How big are some of these needs?
7 The Commission apparently thought that 8 there was a need based on this dwindling number of NRC 9 licensees issue to charter this NRC-agreement state 10 working group.
11 And I guess it might be useful to find out 12 from all of you -- we can discuss all of these things, 13 put any finer points that we want on them. But some 14 of you -- I don't know. Some of you may not think 15 that there is a problem that needs to be solved here.
16 The solution apparently is going to be 17 some options for restructuring the way that agreement 18 states and the NRC now do business. Is that an okay 19 summary?
20 MS. ALLEN: Okay.
21 MR. CAMERON: It's okay. Okay. That's 22 all I'm aiming for. But Terry, what did you want to 23 say on this?
24 MR. FRAZEE: Well, following up on that, 25 okay, so NRC has some indirect costs, and a lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 1 times I hear, you know, the costs of regulations, for 2 instance, and guidance being, Okay, this is a burden 3 that they have that applies to everybody, and 4 therefore it should be shared by everybody.
5 If NRC had the number of licensees that 6 you have now, and all of the agreement states all of 7 a sudden -- poof -- disappeared, would you not still 8 have the indirect costs, the administrative burden of 9 having regulations and regulatory guides for the 10 remaining licensees?
11 Which sort of implies, Well, that's a cost 12 that's not necessarily going to go away. I mean, it 13 would be nice if we shared it with you, I suppose, but 14 it's not something that's, you know, our 15 responsibility.
16 As states, we still have an administrative 17 burden to implement regulations and produce reg 18 guides. Now, it's nice if we can just model them 19 after somebody else's. But we still have that burden.
20 MR. GODWIN: Yes. You've got to prove it.
21 I mean, legally it's a completely new regulation.
22 MR. CAMERON: Now, did you say your 23 assumption was if all the agreement states 24 disappeared?
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118 1 MR. FRAZEE: Well, the argument is the 2 burden -- the number of NRC licensees are diminishing, 3 and yet they still have to pay for this horrendous 4 overhead of regulations and reg guides, as though 5 having -- well, let's see how best to phrase it.
6 They're still going to have to pay for 7 that whether there were agreement state licensees or 8 not. That's a burden they'll always have to pay for, 9 regulations and regulatory guidance.
10 MR. CAMERON: Because of the NRC's role --
11 MR. FRAZEE: Because they're licensees.
12 And if NRC has licensees, whether there's one or 13 10,000, they would still have to have a program of 14 developing regulations and providing guidance for that 15 one or 10,000 licensees. No?
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's follow this.
17 And the implications of what you're saying could be 18 just as simple -- well, what you're saying, Terry, is 19 that this is not necessarily a reason on its own to 20 restructure the relationship?
21 MR. FRAZEE: It's certainly not a very 22 strong one.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Well, 24 let's follow this. And let's go to Dwight, and then 25 we'll go to Aubrey.
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119 1 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: In fact, one of the 2 Commissioners, in agreeing to this working group, had 3 some reservations about the need for the working group 4 and said, There's always going to be a cost, always 5 going to be things that the NRC needs to do.
6 Why not just go to Congress and say, Let's 7 take that out of the fee base and just acknowledge 8 that there's always going to be things that NRC is 9 going to have to do and let Congress fund that 10 separately from collecting fees?
11 To me that's a big option. I don't see 12 necessarily that the only answer is restructuring the 13 interface between the agreement states and the NRC.
14 You might gain some efficiencies there.
15 But one answer may be, let's just go to 16 Congress. And the states could support that. They 17 could -- you know, if all the states got behind that 18 you might be able to get Congress to do something in 19 that area.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 21 you, Dwight.
22 Aubrey, a comment? And we're going to 23 discuss this fee issue -- indirect costs, rather.
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120 1 is very close to accurate when it comes to parts of 2 the regulations like Part 20, talking about general 3 exposure. It applies to essentially any kind of 4 program regulated.
5 And that kind of cost, they would have to 6 have something equivalent to Part 20 if they had one 7 licensee or if they had 1 million licensees. In fact, 8 they've got to have it as long as they've got the 9 reactor program.
10 So you could argue that, you know, that 11 all that administrative cost of Part 20 can be for the 12 most part carried over to the reactor program. I'm in 13 the wrong ball game there, I guess, but whatever.
14 However, there are certain types of 15 licensees that they may never see and would not really 16 have to develop a program on.
17 For example, now they -- for a long time 18 they haven't had a low-level radioactive waste site.
19 So certainly in theory they would not need any Part 61 20 requirements, I guess it is.
21 MR. CAMERON: So you're caveat that you're 22 adding is that it's not the development of regulations 23 for every type of licensee. There's going to be some 24 that would not be included?
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121 1 MR. GODWIN: Right. But the other part of 2 it is, if one of their functions is to maintain an 3 oversight and to support consistency among the various 4 regulatory bodies through the compatibility comments 5 in the agreements, then, they would have to have some 6 expertise there.
7 Even though they don't have to have the 8 regulations, they would certainly have to have some 9 expertise there to review those states where they do 10 have a low-level waste site or now in industrial 11 radiography manufacturing or certain major types of 12 medical research that might be unique and no longer in 13 their jurisdiction.
14 So you know, you can make these kind of 15 cases on the individual basis where the expertise may 16 not be required for the licensees and is required for 17 perhaps oversight that looks less toward their 18 regulatory program and more toward their program of 19 oversight of the Agreement State Program.
20 MR. CAMERON: So what you're saying, 21 Aubrey, is that, because of the required oversight 22 activities that the NRC has, whether we had one 23 licensee or 100, that these oversight activities would 24 still need to occur?
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122 1 MR. GODWIN: Yes. And speaking of 2 oversight, I think if you look at the 274 Section, 3 there's an implication that at some point Congress 4 might want to revisit and see how to change or might 5 want to change the relationship between the Federal 6 Government and the states in terms of how that 7 oversight is managed.
8 And if you look at that, that may change 9 some of the shifting and need for the NRC to have some 10 of these dollars.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go down the 12 table here, and then we'll go over to Tony. And then 13 we'll check in with Bruce and others. Okay? John.
14 MR. HICKEY: Well, I agree with Aubrey 15 that one of the issues is NRC's oversight function, 16 that the oversight function costs a lot of resources.
17 And if the number of licensees are reduced, even if 18 the licensees were paying for it, still a lot of 19 resources would be expended per NRC licensee. So that 20 needs to be assessed.
21 The other aspect of this is whether you 22 should ignore the agreement state licensees in 23 determining, what is the national program? If you 24 view the national program as just what NRC is doing 25 and the agreement states are extraneous, then you can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 1 have NRC continuing to operate the way it operates 2 regardless of the resources.
3 And by the way, most of the Part 20 costs 4 are charged to the reactors, not to materials 5 licensees.
6 But if you view -- as the percentage of 7 state licensees keeps going up to 75, 80, 85 percent, 8 then you may take a different view, that the national 9 program is what the states are doing, and so you need 10 to change the role of NRC and reduce the number of 11 resources that NRC is expending.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, John. I 13 think that's what we're going to here, is, you know, 14 identifying, what is the need for a so-called national 15 program that implies some type of restructuring, 16 perhaps. Felix.
17 MR. KILLAR: Yes. I have a question for 18 Fred on this funding, because I'm not 100 percent sure 19 I understand exactly how it all works.
20 From a licensing perspective, the 21 agreement state Program, up until this past year, has 22 been under the total NRC budget, which was 100 percent 23 funded by the licensees. And so therefore, the 24 agreement state Program, up until this past year, was 25 paid for by NRC licensees.
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124 1 So all the agreement state Program and 2 what-have-you was being paid for by the NRC licensees 3 even though the licensing may be going to the 4 agreement state Program.
5 As Fred mentioned, we now have this 2 6 percent per year, 10 percent over the next four or 7 five years, and the agreement state Program is part of 8 that capture, it's part of that 2 percent. I don't 9 know if you capture 100 percent of your funds out of 10 that 2 percent or not.
11 MR. COMBS: Actually, the Commission 12 hasn't determined how that's going to be apportioned.
13 So it remains to be seen how it's going to be done.
14 MR. KILLAR: And so this goes to the point 15 that, even though you have now part of the NRC's 16 budget being funded by the national taxpayers rather 17 than the licensees, the existing NRC licensees 18 continue to pay for the agreement state Program and 19 support the agreement state Program.
20 And so when you get to the issue of 21 licensees moving from the NRC to the agreement state 22 Program under a state, the NRC just lost all that 23 revenue, yet the NRC still has to maintain that 24 agreement state Program and support that agreement 25 state Program.
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125 1 Going to the second point, is the 2 development of national regulations in this area.
3 Even though the states take on the implementation of 4 those regulations under the agreement state Program, 5 the NRC still has the responsibility for developing 6 those regulations. And what we're talking about here 7 is principally Part 30.
8 As John alluded to, Part 20 is principally 9 picked up by the reactors and stuff. Part 30 is 10 almost exclusively picked up by the licensees, the NRC 11 licensees.
12 So when you look at the activities that 13 the agreement states are taking on, these are 14 principally Part 30 licensees that the agreement 15 states are taking into their programs.
16 And as you lose more and more of these 17 Part 30 licensees from the NRC going to the agreement 18 state Program, there are fewer left to pay for this 19 program. And this is the point we made earlier, is 20 that those remaining licensees get hit with a higher 21 burden to develop those generic regulations which the 22 nation are using.
23 This is where we're coming from from the 24 fee aspect.
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126 1 MR. CAMERON: Let me ask you a question 2 about that, though. Even though that may be true, is 3 it necessarily a restructuring issue, okay, a need for 4 a national program issue, or is it something where it 5 shouldn't just be the 2 to 10 percent, it should be a 6 larger percentage?
7 MR. KILLAR: That has been an issue we've 8 had between the various licensees for some time, 9 because the nuclear power plants have traditionally 10 carried the bulk of the NRC fees and also the bulk of 11 the NRC programs, which they did not get much benefit 12 from, such as the international programs and the 13 agreement state Program, because that's all grouped 14 into overhead.
15 Since the reactors pay the principal 16 expenses of the NRC, that overhead is being borne by 17 the reactors. So the reactors have been, to an 18 extent, subsidizing -- and I don't want to use that 19 term, but I did -- the material licensees and the Part 20 30 licensees. And so when we talk about 21 restructuring, we may need to look at restructuring.
22 Now, it took a lot of effort for Congress 23 to understand this and to actually put in this program 24 now for the 2 to 10 percent. But as Fred alluded to, 25 the NRC Commissioners themselves have not determined NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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127 1 how they're going to divvy up where that overhead goes 2 to and who is paying for it.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, let's continue 4 to explore this indirect cost burden.
5 And Kathy, did you have a question you 6 wanted to ask Felix about something that he said? I 7 always want to check in with you guys, if you need to 8 get more information from someone about a particular 9 comment.
10 MS. ALLEN: I'm going to let it go for now 11 and see where the rest of the discussion leads.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Good. Bill.
13 MR. HOUSE: We've heard a number of 14 comments about the NRC fees being so much more or so 15 much higher than agreement states.
16 And I think we need to ask the question, 17 why? Is it because the agreement states are not 18 getting full recovery of their costs, or is it because 19 agreement states operate more efficiently? I mean, 20 why is this, is one point. And I'd like to hear some 21 more about that.
22 The second point is following up on 23 Aubrey's comment. We don't necessarily need a full-24 blown set of regulations for a very limited number of 25 licensees. One prime example is the Barnwell site.
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128 1 It was licensed and operated and regulated through 2 license conditions for 12 years before Part 61 ever 3 came into vogue.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let me maybe put your 5 first statement in a different context, is that, you 6 asked, why are the fees so much different?
7 Going to Mark's efficiency statement --
8 and I don't know what all he intended to include in 9 there. But is there -- would this restructuring, this 10 national program, okay, given the fact that we don't 11 know what it is, but would one possible option of that 12 be some equalization of fees? Is that a possibility?
13 I mean, I don't know if that's naive or 14 not or whether the working group thought of it, but 15 it's just another thing to think about, I guess.
16 Kathy.
17 MS. ALLEN: I'll address a couple of your 18 questions. In a recent poll of agreement states, not 19 all agreement states are necessarily 100 percent 20 funded by fees from their licensees.
21 But there is a large -- I was surprised at 22 the number of states that really are 100 percent fee 23 based, I mean, they get all their cost recovery from 24 their license fees. So they're structured that way.
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129 1 There are some licensees that have adopted 2 NRC fees, and they have a surplus. They don't know 3 what to do with all that extra money. What a shame, 4 huh? Because they sort of have adopted NRC's fees by 5 default or a percentage of NRC's fees.
6 There are some states that are structured 7 so that it doesn't really matter what they collect in 8 fees. The legislature determines their budget, and 9 they get their money from general revenue, and all the 10 fees paid by licensees get tossed into general 11 revenue.
12 So even if they have a need to expand 13 their program, if they raise their fees for their 14 licensees, they may or may not get equivalent bumps in 15 their revenue or the amount of money that they can 16 spend on that particular program.
17 So every state is structured a little bit 18 differently in the way material is shared -- or money 19 is shared.
20 And a lot of states are facing some big-21 time cuts now. For example, even Illinois, we're not 22 100 percent full cost recovery from our licensee fees.
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130 1 licensees that pay actual full cost and some other 2 sources. But we're not there yet.
3 But if we were to become 100 percent full 4 cost recovery, I don't think our fees would be as high 5 as NRC's because our overhead is not as high. We 6 don't have the buildings and the other groups that NRC 7 has. They have research groups that spend time doing 8 research. There --
9 MR. CAMERON: One of the things that the 10 working group is looking at is how provision of 11 research, clearing house, all of these types of things 12 might lead to more efficiency on a national level, so 13 theoretically there could be some impacts on costs?
14 MS. ALLEN: Yes. We're kind of looking at 15 functions. Who does what? Who maintains clearing 16 houses of information? Who is writing the regulations 17 now?
18 As you mentioned, NRC has been taking the 19 lead in writing regulations. But there have been some 20 instances where states have actually come forward and 21 taken the lead.
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131 1 radiographer certification really started in the Texas 2 program. And they had no support from NRC on that.
3 But Texas -- and did you have a couple of 4 other states that joined you? But Texas basically 5 created a program and --
6 MS. McBURNEY: We did have a grant from 7 NRC to start the bank.
8 MS. ALLEN: The testing?
9 MS. McBURNEY: Uh-huh. But I mean, it was 10 a limited thing.
11 MS. ALLEN: But states have actually tried 12 to take the lead in writing regulations. We see a 13 need, and we share information, saying, Gee, we really 14 need this. And we try and work together to try and 15 create a regulation.
16 But it doesn't necessarily become used on 17 a national level until NRC steps in and is willing to 18 say, Yes. Okay, we'll take a look at it.
19 But then, they don't necessarily just take 20 that rule and adopt it. They take it, and they run it 21 through their process, which costs money, too.
22 So we're looking at ways of trying to 23 streamline this rather than having the same good idea 24 recreated by so many different groups.
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132 1 MR. CAMERON: All right. Well, let's go 2 to Tony and then to Terry and then hear from Jim 3 Marbach on this issue. And then we'll move on to 4 segue into something else. Tony.
5 MR. THOMPSON: I think there's a 6 fundamental difference between the fee issue and the 7 substantive component of a radiological health 8 program.
9 The fee issue is a practical problem that 10 is compounding, you know, causing difficulties. But 11 you know, I don't think it has anything to do with 12 whether or not you need to have some sort of a 13 national program on radiological safety.
14 And so I think that, while the fee thing 15 is important -- and it's certainly important to the 16 uranium recovery people that I work with quite a 17 bit -- the substantive question is a separate 18 question.
19 And one of the reasons you have a Part 61 20 now is because you had a variety of sites around that 21 were licensed by conditions, and they caused problems.
22 They've caused problems for a variety of the states, 23 Kentucky, Illinois, New York, and so forth. So they 24 brought all that expertise together.
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133 1 The reason you don't have low-level waste 2 sites being developed now isn't because you don't have 3 a regulatory program that gives you a clear approach 4 to developing them, taking into account site-specific 5 circumstances. It's a political problem, not a 6 technical problem.
7 So that's a good example of where the need 8 for a national program I think demonstrates itself.
9 And I think that when you start talking about --
10 you've got to recognize that if you're going to change 11 this there going to have to be some fundamental legal 12 changes.
13 For example, EPA has authority under the 14 Reorganization Plan Number 3 of 1970 to develop 15 generally applicable standards for the nuclear fuel 16 cycle. So EPA could step in and trump everything that 17 an agreement state or group of agreement states and 18 NRC did on issues that would relate to the whole fuel 19 cycle, like decommissioning.
20 You look at the fight that's gone on 21 between NRC and EPA over the 15 and the 25-millirem 22 standards. And you know, it isn't just the agreement 23 states. That introduces a conflict and a lack of 24 consistency and problems.
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134 1 In fact, EPA jumped all over the agreement 2 states and the CRCPD for their draft NORM regulations 3 in the same way, they jumped all over NRC.
4 So there are going to have to be some 5 fundamental legal changes in the Atomic Energy Act if 6 you're going to change this relationship dramatically, 7 in my opinion, to make it a whole different thing, 8 which is that it's state driven. Even if you have 85 9 percent of the licensees in agreement states, you're 10 going to have to change the Atomic Energy Act.
11 MR. CAMERON: So, Tony, what you said is 12 that -- or what I captured from what you said is that 13 this indirect cost burden is important, too. It's 14 more important, perhaps, for some sets of licensees 15 than others.
16 But the real issue for a need for, you 17 know, a national program which equates to some type of 18 restructuring, whatever that is, is that the big 19 problem is conflicting regulations --
20 MR. THOMPSON: Is consistency in some --
21 is consistency. And you know, I mean, I don't care 22 what anybody says, NRC's new regulations as they deal 23 with compatibility are pretty squishy.
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135 1 essentially the same thing but not exactly the same 2 thing? It's pretty squishy. And so, consistency.
3 And then you throw in, as the gentleman 4 pointed out, you throw in EPA or DOE into the mix when 5 you're looking at long-term stewardship issues.
6 I guess what I'm really saying is it's 7 going to require more than just restructuring the 8 relationship between NRC and agreement states if 9 you're going to have a national program that has some 10 level of consistency that can be implemented on a 11 state or other level, regional level, however you 12 change things, in a way that makes sense for that 13 particular region or that state.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Squishy. I think we 15 all know what he means by squishy. I'm not sure how 16 you spell it.
17 But I think we're segueing into, what is 18 the real need here? But I want to make sure we 19 capture everybody else on this fee issue. And then 20 let's go into exploring the issue that Tony brought up 21 and other issues.
22 Terry, you have more?
23 MR. FRAZEE: Yes. To sort of close out 24 the fee issue.
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136 1 The state of Washington has been 100 2 percent fee supported since the mid-1980s. And at 3 first we were the highest fees in the nation, bar 4 none, particularly in the early years.
5 When NRC instituted fees, then all of a 6 sudden it flip-flopped, and NRC was charging higher 7 fees than ours. And it varied by category. Some 8 categories were much higher, in others that wasn't the 9 case, different sorts of licensees and different ways, 10 practical matters, how we define licensee categories 11 versus NRC.
12 But when it gets down to it, the 13 differences between our programs, NRC is paying for 14 the research and development of regulations and policy 15 guidance and so forth, and that's sort of the real 16 root of where the differences in fees would be.
17 And from a National Materials Program 18 perspective, if you're going to have a national 19 program, you can't have NRC reducing its role in that 20 area. And I think we were talking about 21 restructuring, and all of a sudden I heard NRC's 22 reduced role. And it's like, wait a minute. I'm not 23 sure that that's such a good idea.
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137 1 NRC to maintain a strong viable focal point for us and 2 be the one that establishes the rules, the regulations 3 which we then have some latitude in adopting.
4 But from our perspective and our state 5 law, I can easily adopt an NRC rule as written or, you 6 know, change NRC to State of Washington. I can do 7 that fairly easily.
8 If I want to do anything more restrictive, 9 then I've got a real burden. In fact, state law 10 almost discriminates against us being able to do that.
11 So you're not going to find the state of Washington 12 being more restrictive than NRC.
13 So bottom line for us is we want to see a 14 strong national program, but that's a strong NRC 15 regulatory development and guidance, because then we 16 can easily adopt those, and then we won't have to do 17 it ourselves.
18 MR. CAMERON: And before we go on over to 19 Mike and Jim, let me just make sure that we know all 20 that you're saying about this.
21 This need for a strong NRC role in this 22 national program is mainly in the development of 23 regulations?
24 MR. FRAZEE: Right. Now, obviously as a 25 state I want to have significant opportunity for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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138 1 input, real input into those rules, because I'm going 2 to have to live up to them according to my state law.
3 Then we'll have to adopt them.
4 MR. CAMERON: But in your state and maybe 5 in many others, is it because of the fact that if the 6 NRC says this should be done, then it's easier for you 7 to go out and develop the regulations, so that NRC 8 mandate is helpful?
9 MR. FRAZEE: Our regulatory format for 10 developing regulations says we've got to jump through 11 a huge number of hurdles to implement any kind of a 12 regulation.
13 But there is an exception category. And 14 that exception category is, If it's a Federal rule, 15 oh, here is the fast track. It's not real fast, but 16 we have a fast track of sorts, and we can adopt the 17 Federal rule without material change.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Aubrey, do you just 19 want to put a little footnote on it?
20 MR. GODWIN: Yes. That's not necessarily 21 true in every state. We have sort of a fast track in 22 Arizona, but we still have to go back and develop all 23 of the economic statements, all of the environmental 24 comparisons and all of that to go with the Federal NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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139 1 rule. And we have to reword the Federal rule to meet 2 the state statutes.
3 So even though we have the statutory 4 authority that opens up and allows us to get into the 5 rule making a little quicker because a Federal rule 6 has occurred, we are not relieved of all these other 7 things. So you have variations on that theme.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
9 MR. GODWIN: And just one other point on 10 fees. This is one case where I've heard of states 11 trying to promote the shop around as at least one 12 state at one time said that they were purposely 13 keeping their fees low to attract industry. To my 14 knowledge, it didn't work.
15 MR. CAMERON: All right. But just to go 16 back to summarizing this, whatever the restructuring 17 is is because of the particular circumstance in a lot 18 of states perhaps with some variations, that the 19 mandate is helpful and that, you know, from particular 20 perspectives, that this national program should still 21 have an NRC mandate to the states on the regulations.
22 MR. THOMPSON: If you think a national 23 program on radiological safety is a good idea, then, 24 there's got to be somebody who takes the lead role.
25 That's really the bottom line.
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140 1 MR. CAMERON: But your rationale for the 2 lead role is a little bit different than the rationale 3 that was just expressed by Terry.
4 MR. THOMPSON: I think mine fits in with 5 what he said. Mine is that, again, if you think a 6 national program is valuable, then, somebody has to be 7 the coordinator or take the lead.
8 And that doesn't mean the states, as Terry 9 suggested, can't participate in the rule making and 10 make all their views known and don't have some leeway 11 to make things fit within the state.
12 It just means that, however you fund it, 13 if you think it's a good idea, you've got to have 14 somebody who is leading the pack, if you will.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's continue to 16 explore these. Let's go to Mike, and then we'll go to 17 Jim.
18 MR. VEILUVA: There really isn't any 19 consensus, I think, among NGOs on how to approach the 20 delegation of authority -- not the delegation of 21 authority -- ceding of authority to the states on this 22 question.
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141 1 something that they know about, that they have access 2 to. The notice and comment procedures, it's at least 3 a somewhat established process.
4 I think why you haven't seen NGOs involved 5 with state rule making is a matter of local resources, 6 and that system is just not going to be as accessible.
7 The national groups are not focused on the state rule 8 making and the state standard settings at all. That 9 might be considered a good thing for some people.
10 But ultimately having some level of 11 national oversight and national structure I think 12 will, ironically, aid citizen participation in a way 13 that the more you spread it out to the states it might 14 not, even though that runs contrary to the standard 15 political science model of more local control is 16 better. In this particular area I don't know that 17 that plays out.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Three 19 things that need to be factored in, or we've at least 20 heard three issues that need to be factored into 21 whatever restructuring comes out of this.
22 One, that the NRC mandate is useful for 23 state regulators in being able to adopt rules.
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142 1 Tony said someone needs to lead. The 2 implication might be that the NRC is the most logical 3 to lead.
4 Mike's perspective from the NGO community 5 is that the citizen group community knows the national 6 structure, knows their way around that better, can 7 have more influence perhaps there than doing it on 8 some other model that's more diffuse with the states.
9 MR. VEILUVA: That's fair.
10 MR. CAMERON: All right. Jim, and then 11 we'll go to Bob.
12 MR. MARBACH: On the funding issue, I want 13 to get something clear in my mind. Are the agreement 14 states presently assessed a fee for oversight from the 15 NRC?
16 VOICE: No.
17 MR. MARBACH: So this comes out of general 18 revenue funds, and perhaps appropriately. The support 19 that you need for oversight? Your funding comes out 20 of general Federal revenue funds?
21 VOICE: No.
22 MR. COMBS: No. The funding comes from 23 licensees 98 percent.
24 MR. MARBACH: Well, I was sort of leading 25 to the point, if the NRC no longer had licensees, it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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143 1 would certainly seem appropriate that all your funding 2 should come out of general revenue. And if your 3 function was oversight --
4 MR. GODWIN: If they had no licensees, 5 what would that function be?
6 MR. MARBACH: Pardon me?
7 MR. GODWIN: If they had no licensees, 8 there would be an argument about what their function 9 would be.
10 MR. MARBACH: Well, an oversight function 11 and this very function that I think we're talking 12 about from the point of view of regulation formulation 13 and control, but perhaps not in a unidirectional way 14 but in a cooperative way with the states. Perhaps 15 that's an idealistic view.
16 But if you had no licensees that you had 17 to draw funds from directly to support yourself but 18 were providing an oversight for all 50 states and 19 territories, then it would certainly seem legitimate 20 that any efforts you need to support in that regard 21 could come from general revenue funds.
22 MR. CAMERON: That would be --
23 MR. HICKEY: Chip --
24 MR. MARBACH: And fees would be left up to 25 the states.
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144 1 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead, John. You want to 2 comment on that?
3 MR. HICKEY: Let me just clarify a couple 4 points. Our budget is from general revenue funds.
5 The collection of fees is just an illusion for the 6 Congress that money is coming in. It doesn't -- we 7 don't -- our operations are not based on how much 8 money we collect.
9 But the other point is, we just heard a 10 couple arguments that, even if NRC had no licensees, 11 it still should perform all the functions that it's 12 performing now to lead the agreement states. So 13 that's part of what this working group is supposed to 14 be looking at.
15 MR. MARBACH: Well, I have gotten the 16 impression that there is a difference between 17 oversight and handling your licensees.
18 MR. COMBS: Let me just answer that. The 19 issue is that, if we had no licensees under the 20 current structure, if we would change nothing else, 21 just the number of licensees dropped, we would still 22 have to maintain the regulations. We would still have 23 to use that as a basis for adequacy and compatibility.
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145 1 at those states for their program administration and 2 how adequate and compatible they were.
3 There would be some real problems. Having 4 no licensees means that you have no access to 5 information or you have now reduced access to 6 information. You can't make regulations as smart as 7 you used to without experience.
8 MR. MARBACH: But it would be incumbent 9 upon the states to work with you on that, I would 10 think.
11 MR. COMBS: Or incumbent upon us to work 12 with the states on it.
13 MR. MARBACH: Yes. And vice versa, 14 obviously.
15 MR. COMBS: Right. And set up a structure 16 where that can happen in the most let's say effective 17 and efficient manner as we could. And that's 18 essentially what this working group is looking to do.
19 The issue of the source of funding is at 20 some point irrelevant to doing it smart and doing it 21 in the best possible way and doing it such that it 22 makes sense and that you have a trained cadre of 23 people to implement the programs.
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146 1 point is that if it's just a question of it's the 2 money, there's another way to do it besides 3 restructuring.
4 MR. MARBACH: Well, at least you would be 5 in the position that your role is clearly oversight of 6 the states. And certainly there shouldn't be a --
7 well, there's always a problem getting funding. But 8 at least your basis for getting general funding would 9 make a lot of sense, and I think all the states would 10 be supportive of that. Otherwise, you would have to 11 bill the states.
12 So that seems like that issue might clean 13 up a bit. I'm not sure you can implement it, because 14 as soon as you force non-agreement states to become 15 agreement states, they're going to ask you where the 16 funds are coming from to do that. So --
17 MR. COMBS: I'll just add that forcing is 18 a significant threshold, and I --
19 MR. MARBACH: Yes. That was a poor choice 20 of words. I'm sorry.
21 MR. COMBS: That would require 22 legislation. It's a very significant hurdle that we 23 would have to work on, and I'm not quite sure it's --
24 MR. GODWIN: It's called an unfunded 25 mandate, and somebody ran an election or two on that.
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147 1 MR. CAMERON: Let's hear from Bob and then 2 check in with one of the --
3 MR. MYERS: Do the rest and then --
4 MR. CAMERON: You say you're okay. Let's 5 go to Bob and then go over to Charlie and Ruth and 6 then Felix and Mark. Okay?
7 MR. LEOPOLD: It strikes me that the best 8 argument for a Federal role in setting the standards 9 is that you're going to have uniform standards.
10 The best argument against it is often the 11 uniform standards don't work in different places. I 12 come from a very small state. Some of your standards 13 don't make a whole lot of sense in our state, quite 14 frankly.
15 It is entirely possible to operate systems 16 without the Federal Government deciding what's going 17 to happen.
18 An example is emergency medical services.
19 They used to be Federally regulated; they aren't 20 anymore. So ambulances have different colored lights, 21 but we still have ambulances all over the country.
22 You don't have to have the Federal 23 Government telling you what to do in all cases, and I 24 think we need to remember that.
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148 1 However, if you're going to have 2 uniformity -- and I hear the licensees like 3 uniformity -- you have to have some mechanism of 4 setting up a nationwide standard so that then we can 5 adopt it. It doesn't always have to be a Federal 6 standard. You can come up with other standards as 7 well.
8 MR. COMBS: Well, and that's why we 9 develop compatibility categories. And in some cases, 10 those categories are -- to coin a term -- squishy.
11 But they have to make sense where they're implemented.
12 And one size does not necessarily fit all.
13 But there are certain things that everybody needs to 14 have. And it's making those individual determinations 15 and distinctions the important part of the 16 communication between NRC, states, and licensees.
17 MR. CAMERON: And Bob, you raised the 18 point of this. We always have this tension, it seems, 19 between this need for uniformity, but also there's a 20 need for flexibility to recognize special situations.
21 And of course, you did put a caveat in 22 there that that Federal Government lead would be a lot 23 better if the regulations made sense, which may go to 24 how they're developed.
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149 1 But how would you change the -- in order 2 to provide the best resolution of that tension between 3 the need for uniformity and flexibility, do you think 4 that the program the way it is now needs to be 5 structured? Could that tension be reduced by 6 something to change the way the NRC and the agreement 7 states relate?
8 MR. LEOPOLD: Well, my experience is the 9 NRC pretty much mandates and the agreement states 10 follow.
11 There are a few areas where that isn't 12 entirely true, but it's not a partnership. It's sort 13 of, You tell us what to do, and we either do it or we 14 don't do it. If we don't do it, then we're not 15 agreement states. So --
16 MR. GODWIN: Well, that's not exactly what 17 the agreement says. The term is not squishy, it's 18 flexible, stealing Michigan's line.
19 The compatibility requirement, if you look 20 at your agreement, it says that you will use your best 21 efforts to remain compatible. It says that they will 22 revoke the agreement if you don't protect the public 23 health and safety.
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150 1 So there is a zone in there between 2 protecting the health and safety and maintaining 3 compatibility that you argue about.
4 You must in any case protect the public 5 health and safety. That's when you lose your 6 agreement.
7 Until, oh, some years ago, you couldn't 8 even give up the agreement once you got it.
9 The way it was written, you could not give 10 up the agreement unless the Atomic Energy Commission 11 or, after a while, the NRC made a formal determination 12 that you were not protecting the public health and 13 safety. Then they would take it away from you.
14 They've changed the rule a little bit in 15 that regard so you can -- the Government can give up 16 your agreement.
17 But maintaining compatibility is one of 18 these flexible areas in there, because you need some 19 flexibility for different state circumstances. And 20 you need to recognize that you can't say, Well, you're 21 not compatible, you're out of agreement. That's just 22 not the way it is.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Aubrey, what you seem 24 to be saying is that there -- I'm going to just leave NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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151 1 this here as an open question: Need to restructure to 2 reduce this tension?
3 What you're saying is maybe the existing 4 nature of the agreements, the existing compatibility 5 requirements may give people that flexibility.
6 MR. GODWIN: I think it works pretty well.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Let's go 8 to Charlie and then Ruth, and then we'll go over to 9 the other side of the table.
10 MR. SHOWALTER: Speaking for another group 11 of licensees, I think we do sort of appreciate some 12 level of consistency between states where we have 13 people going from one state to another and, you know, 14 they're qualified here, they're not qualified there.
15 It's kind of an unfortunate situation to be in.
16 I think that from our point of view in 17 terms of participating in the process -- and we like 18 participating in the process.
19 That it is somewhat easier to do on the 20 national level for us than it would be if there were 21 50 rule-making processes going on in 50 different 22 states and we had to try to keep up with each one of 23 them and get our local chapter involved and, you know, 24 trying to make sure from our point of view that they 25 came out in some reasonable way.
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152 1 And so I think there's some strong appeal 2 for having a national focus and a national leadership 3 in this from our point of view. And I guess the 4 question is -- I also hear what Bob is saying, is that 5 there needs to be some flexibility locally, and I 6 certainly appreciate that.
7 And so I think that this tension will 8 always be there. And what level it reaches, you know, 9 is a matter of how strong the states are versus the 10 Federal Government at any one point and how much 11 flexibility can be built in.
12 But I think if you don't have this sort of 13 national consistency at some level, you know, that 14 chaos is likely to develop from our point of view.
15 MR. CAMERON: Let me just ask you a 16 question about terminology. People keep using the 17 terms consistency and uniformity. Are we talking 18 about the same thing here?
19 MS. McBURNEY: Almost.
20 MR. CAMERON: Ruth, what?
21 MS. McBURNEY: I said, almost.
22 MR. GODWIN: That means no. Right?
23 MS. McBURNEY: Yes.
24 (General laughter.)
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153 1 VOICE: Uniformity implies less 2 flexibility.
3 MS. McBURNEY: Right. Uniformity would 4 mean it's absolutely the same across the board.
5 Consistency means it may give the same level of 6 protection or --
7 MR. CAMERON: So that goes maybe to what 8 John's comment was earlier --
9 MS. McBURNEY: Yes. Right.
10 MR. CAMERON: -- that you can set up a 11 regime perhaps as the NRC has tried to do, where there 12 can be consistency to recognize -- give some 13 flexibility, but it doesn't require uniformity.
14 MR. COMBS: Yes. It could, for example, 15 mean that you get to the same point, but you might get 16 there by different means.
17 And getting there by different means could 18 cause a lot of problems if you're going from one state 19 to the other, understanding the process. The 20 objectives are the same, the process is somewhat 21 different.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Ruth, and 23 then we'll come over to Felix and Mark and Kate.
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154 1 MS. McBURNEY: My comments had to do with 2 the NGOs, the ability for them to comment. And, yes.
3 It is easier to comment on I guess a national effort.
4 The Health Physics Society has a 5 legislation and regulation committee that looks at 6 significant rule and law changes that are out there.
7 However, we've seen in our state there is 8 a big public participation in rule making and 9 licensing actions.
10 We probably have more requirements for 11 opportunities for public participation in licensing 12 actions, for example, and rule making than maybe some 13 other states. We have to notice opportunity for 14 hearing on every licensing action.
15 And we do have a lot of public 16 participation through the regional chapters of the 17 non-Governmental organizations, the Health Physics 18 Society, the American Association of Physicists in 19 Medicine. Sierra Club participates in a lot of that.
20 Although it is easier for a lot of these 21 national organizations to, you know, focus their 22 efforts on national rule making either through NRC, 23 EPA, or like when CRCPD is developing a suggested 24 state regulation. They would be interested in that.
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155 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Ruth. How 2 about Felix? You've had your card up for a while.
3 MR. KILLAR: Well, let me talk a little 4 bit about some of the pragmatic issues that the 5 licensees have. And it goes to the question of 6 uniformity and consistency.
7 It is that, while we have what I call 8 uniform regulations across the country because of the 9 compatibility regulations in the NRC and the agreement 10 states, what we have is inconsistency in the 11 application of those.
12 A good example or a couple of examples is 13 that when Texas first started to put in their 14 certification program for radiography and stuff, 15 people would go to another state and say, I want to 16 put in a program.
17 And they would say, Well, you go down to 18 Texas and get certified, and after you get certified 19 in Texas we'll let you do it here in our state, 20 because we like Texas's program, which was fine. The 21 only trouble is now Texas is basically being the 22 reviewer for some other state.
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156 1 state. New York City is a separate agreement state 2 within the state of New York.
3 If you go to get licensed in the state of 4 New York and you want to do something in New York 5 City, you have to go and get certified in the City of 6 New York in addition to the state.
7 And so while the regulations are uniform, 8 they're not being consistently applied. And that 9 causes us as licensees additional costs and burdens, 10 and it doesn't help the public as far as the 11 perception of, you know, why is this regulation 12 different in this state than that state?
13 Another example is that, while we have the 14 registry for devices and sources -- or devices -- I 15 can't remember what --
16 VOICE: Sealed sources.
17 MR. KILLAR: -- sealed sources and 18 devices and what-have-you, that reciprocity doesn't 19 even apply there. Someone may have got something 20 certified or registered in the state of Illinois.
21 If they take that same certification to 22 another state, they say, Well, you know, I know what 23 Illinois does, and they do a really good job, but we 24 like this aspect over here; we want to put this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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157 1 additional license condition on top of that Illinois 2 certification.
3 So once again it involves additional cost 4 and additional regulatory burden for the licensees.
5 The industry has been working in the last 6 month or so on a suggested proposal to address these 7 issues and stuff. And I'd like to present that 8 sometime later today as an option for this group to 9 consider. That addresses all these various issues.
10 MR. CAMERON: Good. Let me -- I know that 11 you won't let us forget, but I'm going to put it --
12 can I call it an NEI?
13 MR. KILLAR: That's fine.
14 MR. CAMERON: An NEI proposal. Okay.
15 Thanks, Felix. Mark.
16 MR. DORUFF: Well, I thought I was ready 17 to make a few comments. And then I heard what Felix 18 had to say and light bulbs started going off. And so 19 I might -- I'm going to try and get back to where I 20 was ten minutes ago when I first put my card up.
21 Efficiency, I mentioned in my opening 22 statement there was a need for that under a National 23 Materials Program. To me, I think efficiency really 24 means optimization of resources on both sides, both NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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158 1 the regulators and those that are regulated, the 2 regulated community.
3 And there are various different ways you 4 can meet that objective. I think one is to identify 5 synergies. Where are the activities of the states and 6 the local agencies duplicative with regard to what NRC 7 is doing?
8 A second thing to consider is, what is NRC 9 doing right now that they maybe shouldn't be doing 10 even if there continue to be NRC licensees?
11 You know, one example is, why do we need 12 to have two separate licenses in an agreement state 13 for somebody who is distributing exempt quantity 14 materials? You've got one license with the NRC for 15 byproduct material, and you've got another for NARM.
16 You know, there's really no need for that.
17 And under a National Materials Program I 18 could see that that could be very easily eliminated.
19 There are other things where perhaps NRC 20 is regulating things -- and I may open up a can of 21 worms here. But take, for example, Part 35, where the 22 NRC may not even be meeting their own policy statement 23 with regard to intrusion into areas where based on 24 level of risk regulation may not be needed, diagnostic 25 nuclear medicine one example of that.
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159 1 With regard to the need for consistency 2 yet a need for flexibility, I think you can have both.
3 I think for the sake of consistency you can have 4 standards and regulation that originate from a 5 national standards or regulatory body.
6 But you can address the need for 7 flexibility through the licensing process, where 8 specific licensees can have conditions that meet the 9 local needs and the specific applications in their 10 areas need for additional requirements that go above 11 and beyond what the standards call for and to meet 12 local concerns, local needs. It can be addressed 13 through specific license commissions.
14 But I think you can achieve an 15 optimization of resources and still achieve protection 16 of public health and safety through things like 17 synergy, avoiding duplicative requirements, and maybe 18 taking another look at what NRC is currently doing 19 that could be improved.
20 MR. CAMERON: But what you're suggesting, 21 Mark, is that there is a need for some type of 22 restructuring, a national program, that the best way 23 to do these identification of synergies, 24 identification of duplication and unnecessary, would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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160 1 be through some new type of working relationship 2 between the states and the NRC and perhaps others?
3 MR. DORUFF: And I think the NRC should 4 consider what's been done in some of the agreement 5 states.
6 I can speak most specifically about 7 Illinois, where I have a lot of experience. And I can 8 say that we don't always agree with the way they have 9 regulated us, but they do things very well.
10 They do optimize resources, they do 11 consider regulation on a case-by-case basis under the 12 provisions that can be placed into a specific license.
13 Not all their licensees are the same in 14 Illinois. But they are very capable of regulating 15 with some consistency. By not making their 16 regulations too prescriptive, they can get the 17 specificity they need by putting those additional 18 requirements into the licenses.
19 MR. CAMERON: So some states may have 20 approaches in various areas that are better than other 21 states' approaches, and so if there was that sharing 22 of information on a national basis, that that might be 23 helpful.
24 MR. DORUFF: I think we could benefit from 25 the experiences of the various agreement states in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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161 1 developing a national model for regulation that is 2 consistent yet provides flexibility.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Kate.
4 MS. ROUGHAN: I endorse both Mark's and 5 Felix's comments.
6 Just to add a little bit more meat to it, 7 as a licensee that does business in all 50 states and 8 along with our customers, a lot of times before we 9 deliver a product we have to check out the specific 10 regulations in an agreement state.
11 And while we make an effort and get 12 everyone's regulations on file, you know, at least 13 once a year or every two years, it's very difficult if 14 not impossible to keep up with the changes.
15 And I can make a very strong point. I 16 think about 95 percent of the licensees want to comply 17 with the regulations. But if it's difficult to find 18 out what those regulations are, you can't do it. So 19 it raises a question of compliance in a lot of cases.
20 One thing that might be helpful -- it goes 21 along with the uniform standard.
22 If there was a lot more up-front effort in 23 establishing the regulations by NRC, the agreement 24 states, and any stakeholders, if at that point in time 25 people could determine what the differences are, there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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162 1 could be some type of table where Arizona needed to do 2 something a little bit differently, then licensees 3 would know at that time what the compliance issues 4 are.
5 Obviously with the compatibility there's 6 different time frames. You have three years to 7 implement the regulations.
8 So there's a lot of regulations changing 9 after the NRC changes its regulations. And that's 10 very difficult to keep track of.
11 MR. CAMERON: So on that last point, that 12 would go to the development of the regulations?
13 MS. ROUGHAN: Right.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Bruce, I didn't 15 forget about you back there, at least not entirely.
16 I'm going to let you have a question.
17 But we are -- why don't we take -- let's 18 hear from Tony and then hear from Bruce and anybody 19 else in the audience and give Jim a final word, and 20 we'll take a break for lunch. Tony.
21 MR. THOMPSON: With respect to flexibility 22 and the point that Aubrey was making, I mean, I think 23 anybody who has been involved with, say, 24 decommissioning a complex site knows that if you don't 25 have flexibility it ain't going to happen.
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163 1 There is actually a model in place that 2 was inspired by agreement states, and that is in the 3 Mill Tailings Act which was amended in 1982, to allow 4 agreement states to propose different regulations at 5 NRC, and this subsequently then applied to NRC 6 licensees, to allow them to propose an alternative to 7 any EPA or NRC requirement as long as you could show 8 that it was as protective or more protective.
9 And then NRC actually -- it does change 10 the relationship between the agreement state, the 11 typical agreement state relationship with NRC, because 12 NRC does then have a final say involved in it, whether 13 or not that's --
14 But it is a model that's actually in the 15 Atomic Energy Act, and it provides flexibility in a 16 very specific licensee situation for the licensee and 17 the regulator, for that matter, to come up with an 18 alternative to a requirement.
19 And I think that NRC recognized the value 20 of this, because it was a comment that the uranium 21 recovery people made in the decommissioning 22 regulations that NRC came out with.
23 And NRC has the 25-millirem rule, but they 24 also have specific alternatives that you are allowed 25 to apply for.
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164 1 And it's different than an exemption. If 2 you have a right to propose an alternative, then it 3 gives the regulator -- you know, an exemption has a 4 bad flavor to it. You know, it puts the regulator in 5 a difficult position, I think.
6 And so if you have a right to propose an 7 alternative, it means that the regulator and the 8 licensee can work together to see if there is a site 9 specific problem to be solved, and it gives this 10 flexibility. So I would encourage taking a look at 11 that.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 13 Tony. Let's go to Bruce and then other in the 14 audience who might want to talk at this time.
15 Bruce, just give your full name again for 16 Barbara.
17 MR. SANZA: Bruce Sanza. Well, my comment 18 went way back to the hidden costs of the NRC.
19 And one of the things that I've noticed 20 over the years is that there's an awful lot -- no one 21 gets to say what the NRC does but the NRC, even though 22 those costs are sent on to their fee base, so to 23 speak.
24 And so if these hidden costs are being 25 paid for even euphemistically by fees or even a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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165 1 fraction of fees, then, the people that pay those fees 2 ought to have at least a voice in which of those 3 hidden programs are actually useful to anyone.
4 MR. CAMERON: And I think I probably 5 should go to the NRC, Fred, for comment or 6 clarification on Bruce's use of the term, hidden 7 costs, and on whether people get to comment on those 8 or --
9 MR. COMBS: I don't think that we have 10 hidden costs. We publish on an annual basis the basis 11 for our fees in the Federal Register.
12 MR. SANZA: Well, I was talking about some 13 of the programs at NRC that don't seem to have any 14 direct use to most people.
15 MR. COMBS: Oh. You mean direct and 16 indirect costs?
17 MR. SANZA: Right.
18 MR. COMBS: Yes. They are also included 19 in that Federal Register notice. Again, every entity 20 that can charge a fee or a price has these type of 21 costs that go into the product.
22 MR. CAMERON: So you're saying that the 23 indirect costs that are apportioned to licensees are 24 identified?
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166 1 MR. COMBS: I believe they are. And the 2 fee requirements.
3 MR. CAMERON: All right.
4 MR. COMBS: Yes.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Anybody in the 6 audience want to make a comment?
7 (No response.)
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Jim, do you want to 9 give us a final word before we break for lunch?
10 MR. MYERS: Yes. Thanks. I want to just 11 kind of touch on a number of things, but first of all, 12 I think some of the points that Aubrey brought up 13 about costs and fixed costs. And I think we refer to 14 them in the working group as the cost boxes. They 15 tend to add up.
16 And we recognize that some of them you can 17 squish a -- that's not a good word. Sorry.
18 (General laughter.)
19 MR. MYERS: Some of them you can reduce in 20 size, and some of them you look at them and it's 21 really difficult to figure out whether you can get it 22 smaller or not. But those cost boxes are really, you 23 know, tied into a program.
24 And the working group took a bottom-up 25 approach when we started this process. We looked at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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167 1 this and said, Well, we could go top-down or bottom-2 up. But we started from the bottom up. What we did 3 was to identify what we would call elements of any 4 program.
5 So if you have a program, whether you've 6 got one licensee or 1 million licensees, there's going 7 to be certain things that you have to do like 8 regulations in some form, you're going to have to do 9 some kind of licensing in some form, you're going to 10 have to have an enforcement process in some form.
11 And then, there are some things that are 12 optional. Like if you want to choose to do source and 13 device registration reviews or low-level waste, you 14 could pick those out.
15 And those really come out of the INPEP 16 process, because those are the review areas in INPEP.
17 And one of the few conditions that the 18 Commission placed on the working group was basically, 19 Don't mess with INPEP. You can do a lot of things, 20 but everybody is pretty happy with that process, and 21 we've spent a lot of time and effort on it, it works 22 well. Don't mess with that. So that's the one 23 constraint.
24 I hear a lot of things that lead us back 25 to something that we discussed as comfort level.
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168 1 Terry mentioned the fact that there is a 2 great comfort level in being able to point back to 3 Rockville and say, Well, it's those nasty fed guys; 4 they're making us do this regulation, something like 5 that.
6 Or if it's something you really want, you 7 can rely on the Federal entity as a supporter, if you 8 will, to get your point in the right places.
9 There's also probably a comfort level in 10 going too far the other way where, you know, you're 11 going to just throw everything away.
12 And I think the working group recognized 13 that that's probably not good, either, because neither 14 the regulators nor the licensees or manufacturers are 15 going to be happy with that option, because that's 16 just ultimately chaos, everybody is doing their own 17 thing.
18 And we have a process that's been around 19 with all its flaws and good points for probably 50 20 years. I mean, this is what we do, and it's 21 perfected, and everybody knows and trusts it.
22 The question really came about as to how 23 to best manage the process, to try to figure out what 24 the right mix of players at any particular table might NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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169 1 be in order to kind of facilitate, to speed up the 2 process, to get a better product and so forth.
3 And the questions also were asked, you 4 know, is NRC the lead for that, or is that something 5 that maybe the states take the lead for, or are there 6 some other options that we haven't considered?
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
8 MR. MYERS: And I have one last thing, 9 just as a point of order.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
11 MR. MYERS: I think Felix mentioned 12 something, said that the City of New York was like a 13 separate agreement state.
14 For those that don't know, New York is an 15 agreement state. But under their agreement they have 16 four separate offices that we deal with, there's four 17 separate agencies. One of them is the New York City 18 Health Department, which runs all of the medical 19 licenses in the City of New York. So that's what he 20 was referring to.
21 All the other stuff is either run by the 22 Department of Labor; all the other health things are 23 in the New York Health Department. They also have 24 environmental conservation. I can't remember those 25 guys.
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170 1 But basically they have a multi-sectored 2 program there. But City Health is the one that runs 3 their health program or radiation control program in 4 the city.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Jim.
6 Let's take a break. We were originally 7 scheduled for an hour-and-a-half. Why don't we try to 8 cut that down a little bit and be back at quarter to 9 2:00. Is that okay with you, or do you want people 10 back at 1:30?
11 MS. ALLEN: Let's give them an extra 15.
12 Have you told them where the way is to get across 13 or --
14 MR. CAMERON: Well the options -- there's 15 a sushi place -- I'm thinking about squishy.
16 (General laughter.)
17 MR. CAMERON: But I don't think there's a 18 sushi place. But there's a sandwich place that you 19 reach through a walkway. Is that what you're -- I was 20 hoping that one of our Region IV people --
21 MS. ALLEN: Okay. There's a walkway on 22 one of these floors, or you can just go down to the 23 first floor, and it's in the building --
24 MS. McBURNEY: What happened to all the 25 Region IV people?
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171 1 MR. GODWIN: They went to lunch.
2 MS. ALLEN: If you go down to the first 3 floor, you can cross over to the other building. And 4 there's a little snack shop. They've got like a 5 little hot line.
6 (Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the meeting was 7 adjourned, to reconvene at 1:45 p.m.)
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172 1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 2 (1:50 p.m.)
3 MR. CAMERON: And the highlight is the 4 thin mints back there on the table from Mike Veiluva's 5 sister.
6 MR. VEILUVA: They're Girl Scout cookies.
7 MR. CAMERON: Girl Scout cookies. So help 8 yourself.
9 VOICE: All right. For the Girl Scouts.
10 They're one of our sponsors, by the way.
11 (General laughter.)
12 MR. CAMERON: They will be part of the new 13 restructuring.
14 (General laughter.)
15 MR. CAMERON: No one complained that I 16 didn't have them up there on, Many Actors.
17 I thought what we might do is, we want to 18 get into looking at so-called solutions to some of the 19 problems we have identified.
20 But I just want to make sure that we have 21 explored these problems and these opportunities as 22 much as we can before we go on.
23 I also had a request that it might be --
24 Mark mentioned a couple of what I call regulatory 25 dysfunctionalities. I think that maybe the NRC people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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173 1 or working group might be interested in hearing some 2 more examples of that.
3 But I want to put a big caveat on that, is 4 that to fix those dysfunctionalities -- for example, 5 why do you need two licenses? I forget the exact 6 example it was, but you had another one, too, Mark.
7 Do you need a restructuring to fix those types of 8 problems?
9 And then, if you do need a restructuring, 10 what type of restructuring is it? And you know, Kate 11 and others may have examples of that.
12 And then we're back to, again I'll 13 announce the thin mints from Veiluva's sister again.
14 But then I thought we could go into 15 solutions and go back through some of the discussion 16 that we had this morning on some of these issues and 17 see what types of solutions there might be.
18 Kathy Allen this afternoon is going to 19 talk about one specific idea that the working group 20 has been discussing called the Alliance.
21 And we have -- Felix has a proposal that 22 he wants to put forward to us.
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174 1 problems with that? Anybody want to add anything?
2 Terry, you want to say something?
3 MR. FRAZEE: Right. Not a problem 4 necessarily. But the working group has been working 5 for months, and they've got some sort of at least 6 draft report out. And surely they have some 7 suggestions, options. I would find it useful if we 8 had some sort of feel for what they've come up with.
9 MR. CAMERON: Do you want to -- and I'll 10 put this open to the group. Do you want to get an 11 idea of what the working group has come up with in 12 capsule form? And I don't mean just the Alliance, but 13 other options, and then maybe go back in and see --
14 and then discuss these?
15 (No audible response.)
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Anybody have any 17 problems with that? Yes. Dave.
18 MR. MINNAAR: Let me understand something.
19 The Alliance concept is what we're going to be getting 20 into in particular on the agenda. But do I understand 21 what you're saying is that the working group has 22 explored many other options different than the 23 Alliance concept?
24 MR. CAMERON: Yes.
25 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
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175 1 MR. MINNAAR: Oh. Okay. Well, the 2 Alliance, it seems like that's very evolving and very 3 at this moment quite flexible yet far-reaching. So if 4 there are alternatives to this, I guess I'd be 5 interested in knowing how they were compared.
6 MS. ALLEN: Okay.
7 MR. CAMERON: And I think the working 8 group wants to hear from all of you on all of these 9 options.
10 And I just want to make sure that we tie 11 them back in to some of these issues that we talked 12 about in the morning.
13 But maybe it would be a good idea to get 14 that overview.
15 And Kathy, will you be able, when we get 16 to that point, to just give us just a layout of the 17 options?
18 MS. ALLEN: I can talk really fast.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. So good 20 suggestion, Terry.
21 Anybody else have anything to say before 22 we go back to see if we have addressed all of these 23 things that we talked about this morning?
24 (No response.)
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176 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I think that we've 2 pretty much handled this dwindling number of NRC 3 licensees and this carrying the indirect costs issue.
4 How about this, More expertise 5 concentrated in agreement states? It's not a problem, 6 but it may be an opportunity. The idea is that, how 7 do you recognize that? How do you tap into that?
8 And maybe there's not much to say about 9 that other than to look for, when we get to solutions, 10 how you try to recognize that expertise. Dwight.
11 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: My sense is that the 12 agreement states are already stretched thin. You 13 know, there's 20 working groups, and they're 14 supporting those in different ways.
15 And if we try to tap into these, you know, 16 the agreement states have got to think whether they're 17 really able to support all these things we're talking 18 about if they have to fund with FTE or whatever.
19 I think even the Phase 2 group we're 20 trying to put together, we're asking for agreement 21 state support on that, and we're not getting much 22 support for that group yet.
23 So, yes. There are resources out there.
24 But can the states really afford to cough them up to 25 work on things like this?
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177 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. That's a good point.
2 And I think we're going to, you know, we're going to 3 turn to our state representatives to see what the 4 answer is to that, that although they may have the 5 expertise --
6 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: They're using them for 7 their own --
8 MR. CAMERON: Right. And can they use it 9 on this national program?
10 Terry, did you have a comment on --
11 MR. FRAZEE: Well, I think that's right.
12 But I think that's universally right. NRC is also 13 stretched thin. We're all stretched thin.
14 As the number of regulatory programs 15 increases, the number of licensees get spread out.
16 And so we're all going to be stretched thin in that 17 regard.
18 I think, if you want solutions, it's sort 19 of --
20 MR. CAMERON: Maximizing or optimizing --
21 MR. FRAZEE: Yes. My thought of having, 22 you know, the focus on NRC as being the main lead 23 agency in this funded program, this national program, 24 they're going to have to step up and be in charge of 25 developing regulations and guidance and so forth. But NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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178 1 they're going to have to use the expertise that exists 2 in the individual states.
3 Somebody has got to be in charge. And for 4 a national program, I think NRC needs to be that 5 entity. And I think what they have to do, the one or 6 two people that are assigned to any particular task, 7 is they have to go out and find the agreement states 8 that have expertise. It may be one individual in a 9 number of states. But pull those resources together.
10 It's a lot easier for me to support having 11 one of my staff -- he's the expert on who knows 12 what -- Okay, work with NRC; you know, one of them 13 rather than, for instance, a state, particularly our 14 size, saying, Well, we're going to develop a 15 radiography certification program. No. It's not 16 going to happen.
17 We can contribute to the cause, but we 18 certainly can't, you know, take the whole burden on by 19 ourselves.
20 MR. CAMERON: So when we get to discuss 21 all of these various options, one thing that we need 22 to take into account is this issue that's been raised 23 about resource burden, how to do that.
24 Okay. Bill, did you have something?
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179 1 MR. PASSETTI: Well, I don't think I have 2 a solution to what I was going to say. It had more to 3 do with the dysfunctionality. It's kind of the flip 4 side of what we were talking about this morning.
5 We talked national organizations are 6 familiar with the Federal promulgation of rules, and 7 then, they try to keep up with, you know, the states.
8 And we kind of have the opposite problem.
9 Our licensees are familiar with how we develop rules.
10 They're familiar with the state process. And they 11 don't -- they're not aware and don't get involved with 12 the Federal process.
13 And so a lot of times it'll come down, and 14 we'll say, We have to adopt this rule because it's 15 compatibility, and we're having a workshop but you 16 don't have any say over it because it was decided 17 three years ago that this is a rule and we have to 18 adopt it.
19 So the agreement state licensees are not 20 familiar with the Federal process and don't get 21 involved with it most of the time, and it just gets 22 sprung on them at the last minute.
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180 1 or whatever it is, I think it would solve some 2 problems.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And I think that 4 that's good. That's emphasizing a point we heard 5 before, that if there is a restructuring, that one of 6 the things that has to be in that restructuring, 7 whatever the form is, is that there has to be easy, 8 early access to the decision-making process.
9 All right. And Aubrey, did you have 10 something you wanted to add?
11 MR. GODWIN: Yes. It occurs to me that 12 one of your policies has created somewhat of a 13 disincentive, particularly when you start taking your 14 requests for personnel to be used to help you to your 15 upper management in some states.
16 You say, Well, we can't train your 17 personnel anymore. We're going to charge you for the 18 training. But now we want you to come and help us do 19 this other stuff.
20 And the state looks at it, you know, Hey, 21 I had to pay to get the person trained, I had to go 22 through all this other stuff, and now you want a free 23 ride on the end after I got him trained and give him 24 all this experience.
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181 1 MR. CAMERON: So that's not just a 2 resource issue that you're raising. It is sort of an 3 equity issue?
4 MR. GODWIN: Right. It's an equity issue, 5 and it's resource, too. I mean, if you can't get them 6 off to training, you have to figure out some other 7 way.
8 It's one of those things, it's -- I don't 9 know how you would ever quantify it. But when your 10 management realizes that, hey, that they're having to 11 pay for training to the NRC, and then, later you'll 12 come in and ask to assign somebody for a few weeks 13 work to NRC, they, you know, begin to question, Well, 14 hey, why are we paying for all this training?
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Dave.
16 MR. MINNAAR: Well, I just wanted to make 17 a comment with regard to solutions. I just really 18 feel that there needs to be an expanded Federal 19 involvement, as well. And I'm thinking about ISCORS 20 and what's that all about, Interagency Steering 21 Committee.
22 MR. CAMERON: Yes. That's another 23 acronym. We haven't heard from them for a while.
24 MR. MINNAAR: Yes. And maybe that's part 25 of the problem, too, recognizing that, if there's a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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182 1 need for a national standard setting program in 2 radiation protection, it doesn't exist just because of 3 states' needs. And I think the Federal needs are out 4 there.
5 ISCORS is an attempt, I think, on paper to 6 recognize that as an issue. And I see that as being 7 part of a solution.
8 And we're not just talking state 9 standards, but what other Federal agencies do that 10 impact standard setting or produce conflicts.
11 MR. CAMERON: Can you just tell everybody 12 what ISCORS is, including what the acronym -- it's the 13 Interagency Steering Committee on Radiation Standards.
14 It used to be a group called CHRPIC [phonetic]. And 15 we don't need to explain that, because they don't 16 exist now. So I don't know what it means.
17 But anyway, ISCORS was created to -- can 18 someone explain ISCORS?
19 MR. MINNAAR: Well, you can look it up on 20 the Website and get a pretty good definition of what 21 they're all about, but you won't see many products.
22 And I think that's part of the problem, is 23 we have a lot of fragmentation at the Federal level.
24 We recognize we have it at the state level, too.
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183 1 But if we're going to make efforts that 2 involve national efforts and the resources of all of 3 us, then, all of us should include other Federal 4 entities that have a stake in this, and not just EPA, 5 but all of them.
6 And just as CRCPD has a lot of programs of 7 interest to many Federal agencies, and there's Federal 8 support from all of those agencies, maybe we should 9 look at expanding the funding and support and 10 resources to include other Federal agencies.
11 I agree with what we heard earlier from 12 Terry about NRC ought to be the lead. And I certainly 13 don't disagree with that.
14 But something involving the charge or the 15 problem-solving needs of ISCORS I think should be 16 folded into this solution process.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, we'll put that 18 in there. And you know, we may have a discussion 19 later on on what would make ISCORS not work now or 20 work, as the case -- you know, whatever people want to 21 say --
22 VOICE: Those are other issues.
23 MR. CAMERON: -- and how -- any of the 24 options Kathy is talking about, is ISCORS or a beefed 25 up ISCORS any sort of solution to that? Donny.
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184 1 MR. DICHARRY: In the way of solutions, I 2 just wanted to comment on the issue that Bill raised 3 regarding licensees are familiar with the regulatory 4 process within their state but generally are not that 5 familiar with what goes on at the Federal level.
6 And I would suggest that the solution is 7 the involvement of industry organizations such as the 8 ones that are represented at this table.
9 Typically national industrial societies 10 and other trade organizations really do not address 11 state issues, and they focus more on the Federal 12 issues, particularly Federal rule making.
13 And what I expect will grow as discussions 14 of this program continue to evolve is, exactly what 15 sort of resources might industry be willing to 16 contribute to the whole process?
17 And that is -- which I don't know that I'm 18 in a position to comment on right now other than to 19 say that obviously the two resources that are relevant 20 is manpower, expertise, and money.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, we may -- I 22 don't know. We'll get to those issues, I think, this 23 afternoon. I don't know what Felix is going to be 24 proposing, but it may bring in those issues.
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185 1 Let me just make sure -- we're sort of 2 jumping into solutions here. But I think we covered, 3 Continuing need for NRC activities. We talked about 4 that. There seemed to be a pretty strong opinion of 5 NRC having some sort of a lead role. And I'm not 6 saying that's a consensus around the table. Okay?
7 Special needs in individual states, I 8 guess that that was the discussion we had with Bob, 9 for one, about this tension between the need for 10 uniformity and individual items.
11 And Mike, let me go to you while you have 12 your card up.
13 MR. VEILUVA: Well, it seems like with 14 every hour that goes by I learn about five other 15 working group committees. And to me it's fascinating.
16 And I don't know how anyone would possibly keep track 17 of them all.
18 If there is a structure that's going to be 19 developed to facilitate the state and Federal 20 communication on these issues, it seems to me that the 21 reins have to be taken in hand by somebody to really 22 consolidate this process.
23 You know, I would think this would be a 24 universal problem not only by licensees and NGOs but 25 frankly the Federal agencies themselves, as there are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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186 1 way too many subgroups, suborganizations, out there 2 working on tiny little pieces of the problem.
3 From the NGO perspective, I learn of these 4 groups, and I think, Well, gee, that's kind of useful 5 to know about. But would I go? Heck, no. Nobody has 6 the time.
7 If there's one or two umbrella 8 organizations or liaison organizations or working 9 groups or committees, that would be a different thing 10 altogether.
11 But it seems like every time a problem is 12 identified, these things spawn pseudopods like amoeba.
13 It's really remarkable.
14 (General laughter.)
15 MR. CAMERON: Well, I think that, you 16 know, that's another comment that is going to sort of 17 criteria or parameters, things that need to be 18 considered in setting up this restructuring.
19 Resources, early access to decision making, and now 20 the need perhaps to try to consolidate rather than 21 proliferate.
22 If one of the restructuring options puts 23 another actor on the scene, that's something that 24 needs to be considered unless it's somehow going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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187 1 fold other groups into it. And I think that's your 2 point. Okay.
3 So let's see if there's anything here that 4 we -- here's Bob Leopold's, lack of coordination and 5 cooperation among Federal agencies.
6 And Tony raised a point. Tony gave us 7 sort of a solution that, if you put some restructuring 8 together, unless it deals with the capability of one 9 agency to overrule another agency, then, you may come 10 up with a great cooperative scheme, and it could go 11 down the tube.
12 So how do you fold that idea into it?
13 Tony, do you want to say more about that?
14 MR. THOMPSON: Well, I mean, I think 15 that's, you know, ISCORS and CHRPIC reinvented. I 16 mean, the reason they changed CHRPIC to ISCORS was EPA 17 was getting beaten up by everybody else in there on 18 some of their rigid positions, and so they changed to 19 the ISCORS thing.
20 And it's a slightly different format, and 21 it isn't -- but I mean, you see the same problem, the 22 basic fundamental problem that exists between EPA and 23 NRC right now on how we look at risk and how we look 24 at regulation, one which is more performance based, 25 one is more prescriptive. And I don't know how you're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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188 1 going to fix all that without some fundamental 2 restructuring.
3 You can do the best -- I mean, I guess if 4 the agreement states and DOE and NRC all agree, 5 somebody like EPA, if they're being difficult, is 6 isolated to some extent. But it still poses a 7 problem. It poses a problem for disruption. And I 8 don't think --
9 You know, obviously ISCORS isn't the 10 answer. I mean, it isn't doing -- as you said, you 11 get a lot of meetings, but you don't have an awful lot 12 of product that's coming out.
13 So there really are some difficult issues 14 about how you could restructure.
15 MR. CAMERON: I guess that the fundamental 16 issue is, how do you incorporate in your restructure?
17 How do you try to deal with that particular problem?
18 Okay. Let's see what else was mentioned 19 by all of you this morning and just make sure that 20 we've covered it.
21 I think we more than got into the many 22 actors, which also includes licensees.
23 MR. MARBACH: Can I make a comment on 24 that, though? Can I make a comment on that area?
25 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Sure. Go ahead, Jim.
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189 1 MR. MARBACH: As far as recognizing 2 collateral standards, I would strongly urge the NRC to 3 look, if they haven't already -- and they probably 4 have -- at the IEC standards that are under continual 5 development for international standards.
6 And I just happen to work on a national 7 committee that works on the IEC standards. And --
8 MR. CAMERON: Can you tell us, IEC is --
9 MR. MARBACH: It's the International 10 Electrotechnical Commission. And it's got about 25 or 11 30 participating nations.
12 But the important thing that we on the 13 committee see in that standard is that once it's 14 adopted -- and believe you me, it takes a long time, 15 this is a United Nations type issue. But once they're 16 adopted, these standards become law in most of Europe.
17 And from the vendors' point of view, this 18 is very important. And the vendors play a very active 19 role in developing these standards.
20 And so equipment that's developed has to 21 meet IEC standards if it's going to be sold in Europe.
22 And once the U.S. -- and there's hope that 23 the U.S. maybe through ENC will adopt that -- it would 24 be a big benefit to manufacturers of equipment. In NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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190 1 the area that I'm in this involves a lot of expensive 2 therapy equipment.
3 But they also address issues that 4 involve -- we just had a meeting this past weekend in 5 which we talked about after-loading devices. And for 6 those of you who are not familiar with that, it's a 7 device that uses a very high activity radiation source 8 to treat specific diseases in patients. And that 9 standard is moving along very rapidly.
10 And it would make sense to me that we 11 would look at those collateral standards.
12 MR. CAMERON: And you called it a 13 collateral standards organization. Is that -- can we 14 use that as synonymous with consensus standards?
15 MR. MARBACH: Well, I guess so. My choice 16 of words might be inappropriate. It's --
17 MR. CAMERON: Well, I'm not saying it's 18 inappropriate, but just to make sure everybody knows.
19 MR. MARBACH: Yes. It's a so-called 20 international standard, but it appears that the U.S.
21 is on the tail-end of accepting it. Most of the 22 European market and Japan accepts those standards to 23 the point of turning them into law. And they all 24 involve safety issues.
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191 1 So although they're not perfect by any 2 means, they're I think another source to look at if 3 you're going to nationalize some set of regulations.
4 MR. CAMERON: And that's interesting in 5 that we do have this consensus standards organizations 6 issue in the parking lot for when we get into the 7 discussion of solutions. And IEC is another example 8 of that.
9 And some of these solutions like, Well, 10 why not make more use of consensus standards 11 organizations, they might help you achieve some 12 things. But for example, kind of appropo is the 13 conversation that some of us had this morning, that 14 there may be very little public or non-Governmental 15 organization input into the development of those 16 standards. Where do they come in?
17 So if that accessibility helps achieve 18 public confidence, then, you may not get it there. So 19 that may not solve that problem, but it may solve 20 others.
21 Mike.
22 MR. VEILUVA: Yes. Following up on that, 23 I think you have -- there has been some discrimination 24 among NGOs between consensus standards which are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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192 1 engineering in nature versus the broader radiological 2 standards.
3 And I note that it's been an attitude 4 toward consensus based, because I know there is 5 concern out there that, certainly when you get to the 6 broader radiological standard setting that has been 7 done internationally, that certainly the physics NGOs 8 have been involved, and they always will be involved.
9 But the non-physics, non-health-based NGOs 10 have not traditionally been involved in the broader 11 radiological standard setting that has occurred 12 overseas. And that was one of the points that was 13 raised earlier.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we'll come back 15 to those.
16 And Jim, I'm going to get to you in a 17 second.
18 Mark gave us sort of a readout on ways 19 that efficiency could be achieved in terms of 20 identifying areas of duplication, synergism, lessons 21 learned from particularly good programs, and other 22 things. So I think we've talked about that.
23 Many materials and comprehensive coverage 24 I think go together. We've talked about that.
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193 1 So does anybody have anything more on any 2 of these issues that they want to offer before we get 3 into a request from Fred on the specific types of 4 dysfunctionalities that licensees see?
5 (No response.)
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. But --
7 MR. THOMPSON: Can I --
8 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Tony.
9 MR. THOMPSON: I just want to clear up one 10 thing on the bottom of that page, with the Mill 11 Tailings Act thing.
12 What I was referring to was the provisions 13 of the Mill Tailings Act that allow alternatives as a 14 model to provide flexibility. It's not the whole Mill 15 Tailings Act. It's the specific provisions that allow 16 alternatives.
17 MR. CAMERON: Yes. The agreement state 18 alternative model.
19 MR. THOMPSON: Or even licensee 20 alternatives are allowed, as well.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. We'll 22 just use that shorthand, and we'll --
23 MR. THOMPSON: Yes. That's fine. I just 24 wanted to make sure we understood.
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194 1 MR. CAMERON: All right. How about, 2 then -- we started talking about solutions. Jim, go 3 ahead. Sorry.
4 MR. MYERS: Well, I was just going to say 5 that I think the discussion about consensus standards 6 and so forth is very good.
7 But the agency has got an initiative with 8 another working group that is to work with these 9 organizations.
10 But the term of art that we've been using 11 is SDOs, which was standard development organizations, 12 which kind of included, I guess, the process of 13 developing -- which is one aspect that I heard -- that 14 would develop something into a consensus standard that 15 could be used.
16 So I don't know if you want to put SDO up 17 there at the risk of more alphabet soup.
18 MR. CAMERON: Well, see, we don't -- I 19 think it's useful to know. I don't know if SDO is 20 just a term of art that the NRC is using. I mean, I 21 think that the term in the act that I mentioned this 22 morning is -- and Jim Lieberman isn't here -- I don't 23 know if anybody --
24 MR. MYERS: I think it's consensus --
25 MR. CAMERON: Consensus standards bodies?
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195 1 MR. MYERS: Something like that.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And then, we heard 3 Jim call them collateral standards organizations. And 4 you called them SDOs. But I think that it's the same 5 concept, isn't it?
6 MR. MYERS: It's the same concept. It's 7 just another term that's used in NRC I guess in its 8 attempt to better --
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, let's quickly 10 run through some of these dysfunctionalities.
11 And Mark, I'm going to just ask -- go to 12 Kate. But I wanted to just ask you those two examples 13 that you gave before. And we can do this, then. And 14 at least the working group will have some specific 15 examples.
16 But you said, Why do you have to have 17 two --
18 MR. DORUFF: The two examples that I gave 19 were my assessment of where I think the NRC needs to 20 go regardless of whether or not we go to a National 21 Materials Program. I mean, it's the way things are 22 now.
23 The first was dual licensing. The 24 specific example I gave was a licensee in an agreement 25 state is currently required to have two -- well, their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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196 1 exempt quantity distribution or their distribution of 2 exempt quantity materials is regulated under two 3 licenses, one with the agreement state for NARM 4 materials, and one under the NRC for byproduct 5 materials.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So an agreement state 7 licensee needs two licenses, one from NRC and one from 8 the agreement state for exempt quantity materials?
9 MR. DORUFF: Yes.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right.
11 MR. DORUFF: The other example of a 12 dysfunctionality that I gave had to do with certain 13 deviations that at least our industry believes NRC has 14 taken against its own certain policy statements. One 15 specifically was Part 35.
16 MR. CAMERON: Oh. That's right.
17 MR. DORUFF: And where I'm going with that 18 is, whereas the policy statement said that NRC would 19 not intrude into areas of low risk and where other 20 standards or requirements adequately protected the 21 public or patients, they continue to regulate certain 22 low-risk activities under Part 35, a specific example 23 being diagnostic nuclear medicine.
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197 1 They continue to regulate in that area, 2 and their proposed revision continues to maintain that 3 position.
4 MR. CAMERON: And does that -- this one, 5 it's an example from NRC. But there probably are not 6 only other examples from NRC but examples that people 7 might raise about agreement states' interpretations, 8 which may go to -- and sorry, Kathy, I know that never 9 happens out there.
10 MS. ALLEN: No.
11 MR. CAMERON: But it sort of goes to 12 Felix's point about the application of some of the --
13 the point you made about the rules themselves may be 14 okay, but the application of the rules is inconsistent 15 or may deviate from what is said in the rules.
16 Let me go to Kate. Kate, do you have some 17 examples?
18 MS. ROUGHAN: Well, the first one, that's 19 very true. We have to have two licenses to distribute 20 exempt quantity radioactive material, one from the 21 state and one from NRC.
22 Another example is that there are some 23 isotopes that are being regulated either as NARM or 24 byproduct material.
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198 1 A good example is Cadmium 109. And 2 basically when we distribute to our customers, we have 3 to know the origin of that Cadmium 109 to determine 4 what license we have to ship it under and to see if 5 they're even authorized to have it, because they may 6 just have a state license that authorizes the NARM, 7 but they can't get byproduct.
8 MR. CAMERON: Let me make sure I capture 9 this correctly and that everybody understands it.
10 It's that some isotopes -- and you're using Cadmium 11 109 as an example -- they're regulated as NARM and --
12 MS. ROUGHAN: It can either be produced by 13 reactor or by accelerator. So based on its method of 14 production, it can be distributed as either NARM or 15 byproduct.
16 So we have to determine the customer and 17 which one they're allowed to receive, check it against 18 the origin and make sure everything matches up on 19 that.
20 MR. CAMERON: So the reason you call it a 21 dysfunctionality is that it shouldn't make any sense 22 to regulate it either as one or the other just because 23 of the method of production?
24 MS. ROUGHAN: Right. Doesn't matter.
25 MR. CAMERON: All right.
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199 1 MS. ROUGHAN: It's the same thing.
2 MR. CAMERON: Now, Tony is excited about 3 this.
4 MR. THOMPSON: I mean, that's getting back 5 to this thing we talked about earlier, the idea that 6 you regulate similar risks with similar standards.
7 But the fact is that an agreement state's 8 authority is broader generally -- the ones I'm 9 familiar with -- over radioactive materials than just 10 the Atomic Energy part of their jurisdiction, for 11 example, radium, and NORM and NARM and all that.
12 So I don't know that it's a dysfunction.
13 It's just a fact of life that there's a difference 14 between their AEA jurisdiction and their state 15 jurisdiction over other types of radioactive 16 materials.
17 MR. GODWIN: The problem is the Feds 18 aren't keeping the same standards between two 19 different types.
20 MR. CAMERON: What did you say, Aubrey, to 21 make sure everybody heard?
22 MR. GODWIN: The problem is that the 23 Federal agencies don't regulate the similar risks the 24 same way.
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200 1 MR. CAMERON: And someone -- Aubrey, I 2 guess it was you this morning -- and others alluded to 3 it as this comprehensive coverage, that it would be 4 useful if all the materials with the same risk were 5 regulated in the same way.
6 MR. THOMPSON: It's a big political fight 7 right now over FUSRAP material. Okay? Was it pre-8 1978? And it's exactly the same thing as uranium mill 9 tailings. And is it subject to AEA jurisdiction or 10 not?
11 And you get into all kinds of difficult 12 questions because the standards that are applicable to 13 byproduct material, 11(e)(2) byproduct material, under 14 the Atomic Energy Act are more stringent than what's 15 applicable to a RCRA facility. So it's just --
16 MR. CAMERON: So this is one other factor 17 that whatever this restructure should be should take 18 into account, is that even if you didn't have -- that 19 it should facilitate the regulation of like material, 20 like risks in the same way?
21 MR. THOMPSON: It's on the TV screen now.
22 I mean, it's on the radar screen in Congress and other 23 places. So I think it's something you have to think 24 about. Now, what you can do about it is another 25 matter.
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201 1 MR. CAMERON: All right. Donny. Oh. I'm 2 sorry. Kate, did you have more?
3 MS. ROUGHAN: That's all right. Just one 4 quicky.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
6 MS. ROUGHAN: Another example of that is 7 in the radiography industry. They may use both 8 byproduct material and X-ray units, but the NRC only 9 regulates the byproduct. Yet in Part 20 you're 10 limited to the total dose to an individual to what's 11 in the NRC regulations.
12 The radiography company may be getting a 13 good amount of exposure from the X-ray, which the NRC 14 has no jurisdiction over. So that's a very big 15 disconnect there, also.
16 MR. CAMERON: So in radiography, the only 17 exposure that is regulated is the exposure from the 18 byproduct?
19 MS. ROUGHAN: The byproduct material.
20 VOICE: No. No. The X-rays are by NRC.
21 MS. ROUGHAN: By NRC. Sorry. By NRC.
22 MR. CAMERON: Oh. Okay. I see.
23 MS. ROUGHAN: Potentially NRC.
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202 1 MR. THOMPSON: But NRC is only going to 2 enforce on that portion of it that's subject to their 3 jurisdiction.
4 VOICE: No.
5 MR. THOMPSON: So you have to -- oh, yes.
6 MS. McBURNEY: No. It's from all sources.
7 MR. THOMPSON: It's from all sources. But 8 if you go talk to Dennis Sullenberger and ask him, 9 What does it mean when you say you have responsibility 10 for occupational exposure from all sources under the 11 control of the licensee, the only thing that NRC can 12 force you to do is make sure that the NRC portion of 13 that exposure doesn't put you over 100 or 5,000 for 14 occupational.
15 They can't enforce against the stuff that 16 isn't under their jurisdiction.
17 MR. CAMERON: Unless it's intermingled 18 or --
19 MR. THOMPSON: Well, I mean, I don't know 20 how it's intermingled. Just because it's on the same 21 site, though, doesn't change anything.
22 VOICE: Medicine is full of that.
23 Medicine is actually dominated by that.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. The working group 25 understands it.
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203 1 MR. THOMPSON: Well, that's very 2 difficult.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We have some people 4 back there. And Kate, are you done with those?
5 MS. ROUGHAN: Yes.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, let's go to 7 Donny, and then we'll go to Ruth and go to Cindy. Did 8 you want to offer something on this example?
9 MS. PEDERSON: I was going to talk about 10 the total dose example a little bit that was just 11 discussed.
12 MR. CAMERON: Cindy, why don't we continue 13 with that same example, then? Go ahead.
14 MS. PEDERSON: Okay. If I could just add 15 on just a little bit to the total dose issue.
16 We recently have had experience in this 17 area, and it's something that the working group is 18 aware of.
19 We had a radiopharmaceutical manufacturer 20 that the significant doses were in the area of non-AEA 21 material, but they also had byproduct material, and 22 the total dose was exceeded, and it ended up being 23 escalated enforcement. So it is a real issue.
24 The predominant dose, however, was state 25 regulated material, but we did enforce the total dose.
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204 1 MR. CAMERON: Now, when you use the term, 2 working group, you're talking about --
3 MS. PEDERSON: The National Materials 4 Program working group was aware of that issue.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
6 MS. PEDERSON: There is a separate working 7 group on the particular task.
8 MR. CAMERON: I just wanted to be clear on 9 that.
10 MR. THOMPSON: I'm not questioning that 11 the total dose is applicable under the NRC regulations 12 in Part 20.
13 I'm just saying that, even if the larger 14 dose is from non-AEA materials, what NRC can enforce 15 on -- if I'm your lawyer, and I've got the dose from 16 non-NRC materials way down and it's clearly the dose 17 from something else that's doing it, we're going to 18 have a serious question about any escalated 19 enforcement, I guarantee you, because --
20 MR. CAMERON: By the NRC?
21 MR. THOMPSON: Yes. By the NRC. Because 22 you can't regulate what you don't have authority to 23 regulate, period. But that is a dysfunction. I mean, 24 that is a real dysfunction.
25 MR. CAMERON: All right. Ruth.
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205 1 MS. McBURNEY: Another example of this, 2 one we're dealing with recently, is intravascular 3 brachitherapy that is going to done in special 4 procedures X-ray rooms.
5 The shielding for those rooms was done for 6 the X-ray. However, once you start doing many 7 hundreds of intravascular brachitherapy procedures in 8 that same room for a year, the outside evaluation of 9 dose to members of the public is going to be 10 completely different, and the shielding is going to 11 have to be completely different.
12 But that's going to have to be added 13 together. It's not one or the other, it's additive.
14 MR. MARBACH: If you roll in the 15 radiotherapy source, then the room has to change.
16 MS. McBURNEY: Right.
17 MR. MARBACH: I mean, that's facetious, 18 but that's what the rules are.
19 MS. ALLEN: But if you segment those, then 20 licensees don't necessarily think about them as a 21 single thing. That's the problem.
22 MR. GODWIN: Yes. Under NRC jurisdiction 23 they might could get away without having to change the 24 room, whereas under state jurisdiction they would 25 probably have to change the room.
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206 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And Donny, I'm sorry.
2 Can we go to you now?
3 MR. DICHARRY: I'm not sure if this is an 4 issue that the NRC would consider a dysfunction. But 5 with regards to the fact that Government and commerce 6 have to operate hand in hand, I'm going to mention one 7 problem that I consider to be a dysfunction.
8 And it is that some of the cost recovery 9 fees that the NRC charges for services are 10 unpredictable. And it becomes very difficult for 11 businesses, licensees, to build a business plan around 12 some of those fees.
13 The fee that I am speaking of is the fee 14 for approval of a Type B transport package. The 15 regulations for those packages really have not changed 16 over the past couple of decades, and yet the fees in 17 some cases have escalated 1,000 percent.
18 And so it makes it difficult for a 19 manufacturer to know whether or not they can even 20 afford to pursue the development of a new device that 21 has to be transported and try to put it into the 22 stream of world commerce if we don't know how much 23 it's going to cost before we even start the project.
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And again, these 25 issues may not translate into a need -- this is a good NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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207 1 example of one that maybe this doesn't transfer into 2 a need for a restructure. Maybe this is just 3 something that the NRC needs to figure out.
4 George, do you want to say something about 5 this one? This is George Pangburn.
6 MR. PANGBURN: George Pangburn from Region 7 I. I think it just gets back to part of the initial 8 reason that the group was brought together, and that 9 is simply, you know, the Materials Program costs are 10 a relatively static portion to the NRC budget.
11 But as the number of licensees go down, 12 those costs, staying the same, are going to go up. I 13 mean, we're seeing that in every category, whether 14 it's fuel cycle facilities, mill tailings, the 15 individual materials licensees.
16 I think there is rhyme or reason to it.
17 I don't particularly like the rhyme or reason, but you 18 know, it's a denominator change here. There is little 19 place for it to go but up absent a significant -- and 20 I mean significant -- decline in the size of the NRC 21 Materials Program.
22 MR. CAMERON: George, are you saying that 23 the reason for this unpredictability is the fact that 24 because the number of licensees are going down? Is it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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208 1 that we never know what we're going to be using to 2 divide up to get to --
3 MR. PANGBURN: It's the same issue that 4 was talked about earlier, namely that the sheer number 5 of people that have to bear the burden of the costs is 6 declining.
7 It may not be necessarily transferrable to 8 the exact example that you gave. But I think it's 9 fair to say that for most materials licensees, over 10 the last nine years they've seen fees go nothing but 11 up.
12 I mean, if you think about it, when the 13 fee rule began we had 9,000 licensees. We dropped 14 about 1,000, 1,500 in the first year or two after that 15 fee rule. And with the combination of other states 16 like Ohio and Oklahoma going Agreement, the fee base 17 has simply gotten smaller and smaller.
18 It's difficult to see the program going 19 any way but those costs getting larger and larger.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Felix and then 21 Mark.
22 MR. KILLAR: I just want to go back to a 23 little bit of the dysfunctionalities due to multi-24 licenses.
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209 1 At a facility I used to work at, we had 2 three different licenses. We had one from the NRC for 3 special nuclear material. We had a second one issued 4 by the State of Tennessee for NARM because of some of 5 the check sources we had on the site. And then, we 6 also had a NORM license because we had source material 7 on the site.
8 What this resulted in is that we would 9 routinely have three different inspectors come to the 10 site, and sometimes all at the same time. And so this 11 really caused us a lot of problems of having people 12 available at the site to work with the various 13 inspectors while they were at the site.
14 It would be a lot more convenient if we 15 had one license for radioactive material regardless of 16 what type or form of radioactive material it is.
17 MR. CAMERON: Which again, I guess that 18 goes back to that comprehensive coverage point.
19 Mark, and then we'll go to Fred.
20 MR. DORUFF: I think there's one general 21 area of dysfunctionality that can open up a number of 22 different areas in need of improvement or 23 opportunities for improvement, and that would be 24 radioactive waste.
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210 1 I think there's dysfunctionality with 2 regard to how this material is characterized. How is 3 it defined?
4 I mean, one of the things that has really 5 been perplexing is the fact that there really is no 6 definition of what radioactive waste is.
7 VOICE: It's what it's not.
8 MR. KILLAR: It's what it's not.
9 (General laughter.)
10 MR. KILLAR: And you find out what it's 11 not when you try to cross agency lines to transfer 12 materials. If you try to transfer for recovery, if 13 you are considering exporting any material, people can 14 tell you whether or not they think it's waste, but at 15 the same time, they cannot define what waste really 16 is.
17 This has implications in other certain 18 subcategories of this particular dysfunctionality, 19 decommissioning being one, another being financial 20 surety.
21 I think it also highlights the need for 22 other agency involvement in this process, as mixed 23 waste is probably one of the most significant 24 challenges that any licensee in the biotech or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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211 1 biomedical field has experienced over the last 20 2 years.
3 And then, there are also issues that have 4 to do with transfer of used materials, expired 5 materials in the area of diagnostic nuclear medicine, 6 return of used syringes, needles.
7 There are a variety of different 8 interpretations as to whether or not those materials 9 can be characterized as waste, medical waste, 10 biohazardous waste.
11 Again you bring in other agencies such as 12 OSHA, individual state health agencies, just a myriad 13 of opportunities there for improvement through a 14 National Materials Program.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Bill House, do you 16 want to say anything to tag onto -- not that you're 17 Mr. Radioactive Waste, but do you want to say anything 18 on this?
19 MR. HOUSE: Some of the things that I 20 mentioned this morning, the additional permitting and 21 fees associated with that, additional regulatory 22 oversights associated with radioactive materials when 23 they become waste.
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212 1 And that's a very fragmented, disjointed 2 program across the whole country, different types of 3 permits for different functions.
4 MR. CAMERON: Are you saying that that 5 additional permitting may be unnecessary or is 6 inconsistent with other types of permitting, or are 7 you just talking about that these are additional 8 requirements?
9 MR. HOUSE: Additional requirements that's 10 inconsistent with the risks associated with the 11 materials.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Let's go 13 to Fred.
14 MR. ENTWISTLE: I just want to go back.
15 You made the distinction earlier this morning of the 16 difference between consistency and uniformity. And I 17 think that's a good point.
18 It brings to mind, in our organization, 19 we're part of a larger EHS group. And if you look at 20 the other groups, as they assign tasks, they assign 21 one person to deal with a certain division, for 22 example, while we've found what we have to do is 23 assign based on location.
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213 1 different facilities doing very different things. But 2 just the minor differences from state to state are a 3 key issue for us. And it's not that one is better 4 than the other, but it's just those subtle 5 differences.
6 It takes a significant effort on our part 7 to keep current on what those are because if you get 8 tripped up over a minor thing, you still take a 9 painful lump for it.
10 So I think from the point of view of a 11 multi-state licensee, uniformity really rates very 12 high on the list in terms of what we're looking for.
13 MR. CAMERON: And I'm glad you added that, 14 From the perspective of a multi-state group.
15 MR. ENTWISTLE: Yes. We're in the unique 16 position, when you talked about fees, as there get to 17 be more agreements we get to pay the NRC more and pay 18 the agreement states. So we get a double benefit.
19 (General laughter.)
20 MR. CAMERON: A double benefit. All 21 right.
22 VOICE: As long as you appreciate it.
23 (General laughter.)
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214 1 of an impact on us than the variability of the 2 programs between different states, because that 3 affects what our training is. We would like to have 4 a single health physics manual which applies to every 5 location.
6 I think the real costs to us have more to 7 do with the variability than the direct fee costs. So 8 that's a lesser part of it.
9 MR. CAMERON: So I think that's an 10 important issue. In other words, the compliance 11 costs, because of the ununiformity, is much more 12 important, is a bigger factor for you than the fees.
13 MR. ENTWISTLE: I think so. Yes. Than 14 the fees. The fees are more --
15 MR. CAMERON: Is that pretty basically 16 true? Everybody seems to be shaking their head yes on 17 that.
18 MR. ENTWISTLE: The fees are more obvious 19 because we get to write a check, but I think the other 20 is really more significant.
21 MR. CAMERON: All right. Okay. Anybody 22 else want to chime in on this? Mike.
23 MR. VEILUVA: Yes. Well, I couldn't let 24 the nuclear waste issue go without a comment.
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215 1 You know, the current classification 2 system hasn't made a whole lot of sense to us, either, 3 I should say. And one of the problems that we've 4 raised in our comments over the years when these 5 issues arise is that it doesn't allow us to 6 discriminate between the harmful waste and the lesser 7 harmful waste.
8 And so what often happens is you wind up 9 in an opposition position the whole nine yards, 10 because as it's currently classified there isn't a 11 whole lot of connection between the waste and the 12 health risk, which is our concern.
13 You can have low-level waste which is more 14 dangerous than other types of waste depending upon --
15 but it makes life difficult for us.
16 So while I see a lot of usefulness to 17 addressing the reclassification issue, I'd be really 18 surprised if the working group could actually take on 19 something like that given the enormous inertia in the 20 current system dealing with the classification of 21 nuclear waste.
22 If they can do it, power to them. But 23 that would -- but that's a heck of a lot to chew on.
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216 1 particularly when we hear options from the working 2 group is, are any of those options meant to do things 3 like to make the whole scheme of regulation for 4 materials and waste as an example, could any of those 5 options be used to try to tackle issues like that, or 6 is that something that is outside the purview?
7 And I guess we'll find out about that.
8 Jim, did you want to say anything before 9 we go -- I guess maybe this is a good time for Kathy 10 to tell us about the options. But Jim, did you want 11 to comment?
12 MR. MYERS: Well, yes. I was just going 13 to say there's another form of kind of dual licensing.
14 It's an economic based licensing.
15 And if you take the example of some of the 16 service providers or folks that do trans-boundary work 17 like radiographers or others, it's often cheaper 18 although more of a regulatory burden to get two 19 separate licenses or multiple licenses from different 20 entities than it is to go through the hassles of 21 trying to figure out reciprocity issues and timing of 22 reciprocities or paying fees for reciprocities, 23 because you pay by the entry from some states in 24 others.
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217 1 So there are some things that are not what 2 I'd call health and safety issues, but they are a fact 3 of life, and they're things that really do affect 4 business and probably not to the positive in that 5 respect, because now you've got to manage two or three 6 different licenses.
7 You're still paying fees to everybody in 8 the world, and then suddenly you find out you're going 9 to go to another state, and, gee, now I've got to pay 10 reciprocity there because I don't have a license 11 that's valid there.
12 So that's an issue again, but that one is 13 driven I think largely by economics. Everybody has 14 got a requirement to pay a fee for reciprocity now 15 which we didn't have too many years ago.
16 MR. CAMERON: All right. Okay. Kathy, 17 are you ready to tell us about the options, or do we 18 want the thin mints? Are we ready for some thin 19 mints? We've only been back for an hour.
20 MS. ALLEN: I'm ready. Well, Jim wants to 21 talk some, too, so I'm going to let him cover some of 22 the other options that we've sort of looked at, and 23 then I'll --
24 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
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218 1 MS. ALLEN: Just some of the range of 2 things that are possible. And then I'll cover --
3 MR. CAMERON: And these have been to --
4 you came up with these options to address the types of 5 problems that we've been discussing this morning?
6 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
7 MR. MYERS: Right.
8 MS. ALLEN: Just now.
9 MR. CAMERON: All right.
10 (General laughter.)
11 MR. MYERS: Well, let me say this. The 12 working group is an evolving process. So I mean, what 13 we discussed a couple months ago may not have be 14 operative yesterday.
15 And certainly after some suggestions from 16 the Steering Committee, we went back and looked at 17 some options or concepts that we had talked about and 18 kind of developed and came up with some new spins on 19 them.
20 So one very basic option that you could 21 consider a National Materials Program would be the one 22 where everything goes back to the NRC.
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219 1 these some 17,000 licensees that are out there among 2 the agreement states.
3 Undoubtedly Region IV would get bigger 4 than what it is, and we would probably have more 5 regions in order to handle that. And of course, 6 consequently you would have to have a build-up in 7 staff.
8 But the advantages would be that you would 9 have a very strong Federal entity, you would have a 10 single source that would tell you what you need in 11 terms -- well, you wouldn't even need to make your own 12 regulations except in those areas where you felt 13 compelled to like X-ray or something like that.
14 But basically, you know, you'd just have 15 everything given to you.
16 MR. CAMERON: So NARM -- it wouldn't --
17 MR. MYERS: Well, and that's --
18 MR. CAMERON: NARM would still not be 19 covered.
20 MR. MYERS: That's a suboption. I mean, 21 now, if you wanted to go that far, you could say, 22 Well, okay, amend the act and include all of the NARM 23 stuff in it, and then we'll have a huge NRC that will 24 do it all.
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220 1 MR. CAMERON: If you -- well, go ahead.
2 I don't want to --
3 MS. ALLEN: All those in favor --
4 (General laughter.)
5 MR. MYERS: Assume that we've got a winner 6 with that plan. No. Just joking.
7 I mean, seriously, though, it is a 8 consideration. It could be done. And it would give 9 you a certain amount of comfort and security knowing 10 that you've got a single source for everything, and 11 i t ' s a F e d e r a l p r o g r a m .
12 Okay. Another option would be that NRC 13 would maintain its agreement state programs but -- and 14 perhaps they would continue to get more agreement 15 states -- but what it would do is to streamline its 16 process and get down to the absolute minimum things 17 that it has to do under the Atomic Energy Act.
18 And I guess by that we would be looking 19 at, do we need to have an agreement state Program?
20 Yes. Because the act requires us to have one if we're 21 going to have agreement states. And we would have to 22 go out and look at states to see if they're 23 maintaining health and safety. And there's a number 24 of other things that the NRC is required to do.
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221 1 But the point of that exercise here in 2 Option 2 is that you've got these required things, but 3 you do just the minimum. Okay? You fly at the 4 slowest air speed to maintain control, but you're 5 going to try to just hang at that level.
6 And obviously there may be some reductions 7 in costs and expenses, regulatory burden, if you're 8 doing that versus, you know, the idea of having the 9 Federal case which is the huge gold-plated program 10 which costs more and so forth doesn't exist in that 11 option.
12 Some of these things could be given back 13 to the states. Let's say like right now we do SS&Ds; 14 you know, there could be some way that that would be 15 turned back to the states and you all do it.
16 A third option would be that the states do 17 it all and NRC has a really small regulatory program 18 that would affect its entities that it regulates, 19 probably mostly the Federal licensees that we have 20 because of this Federal preeminence concept unless 21 something was done to change that. We would still 22 have the Indian tribes to manage that issue.
23 But basically the states would take over 24 running a National Material Program.
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222 1 Now, we haven't figured out how they do 2 that, because we would assume that there would be some 3 kind of overarching organization that would help 4 coordinate, control, or something -- I don't know --
5 Internet Website, however you do it. But basically 6 all the direction, all of the regulatory products, 7 everything would come from the states.
8 MR. CAMERON: And then, the difference 9 between 2 and 3 is what?
10 MR. MYERS: Well, the difference there is 11 that in Number 2 NRC still maintains a certain level 12 of national preeminence, if you will, and has certain 13 regulatory processes that it does.
14 MR. CAMERON: Would we do rule makings 15 and --
16 MR. MYERS: Yes. You could. Sure. But 17 not at the Number 1 in that concept. Maybe you'd do 18 Part 20, let's say, or you might do Part 71, 19 transportation regulations, which are kind of 20 universal.
21 MR. CAMERON: But this is -- if you talked 22 about differences in nature and in kind, this is a 23 difference in kind between 2 and 3 or --
24 MS. ALLEN: Yes. In Number 3, NRC becomes 25 just another agreement state. They --
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223 1 MR. CAMERON: So we don't review for 2 compatibility, for example?
3 MS. ALLEN: No. No.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
5 MS. ALLEN: And it becomes more like the 6 X-ray program, where every state just has its 7 authority to do its own thing.
8 And should the states choose to share 9 information under an umbrella group similar to the 10 CRCPD, the states can do it if they want to. But 11 there would be no oversight necessarily.
12 MR. CAMERON: All right.
13 MS. McBURNEY: And in 2, there could be 14 still agreement states and non-agreement states?
15 MS. ALLEN: Yes. But in 3, there would 16 not be.
17 MS. McBURNEY: Right.
18 MR. MYERS: And in fact, the NRC, as it 19 says in 2, could decide to change the AEA and give up 20 some responsibilities. In other words, they could 21 have something that they would choose to give up.
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224 1 because the states are really running it, not the 2 agency.
3 MR. CAMERON: So 1 and 3 are more radical 4 than 2 and may require legislative change?
5 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
6 MR. MYERS: Well, 1 is actually the 7 historical thing prior to the modification of the act 8 to permit agreement states, so it's not all that far 9 out.
10 MS. ALLEN: Back to the future.
11 MR. MYERS: Back to the future.
12 There's a fourth option, which was to 13 create a delegated program where NRC would set the 14 rules and the standards. The states would have the 15 inspection and licensing activities.
16 I don't want to characterize it as an FDA 17 type model, but that's probably the closest thing that 18 we could come to, is where FDA sets standards for 19 manufacturing. About the only thing it would get 20 into, I guess, is mammography standards.
21 But it's left up to the states under a 22 delegation to go out and do the inspections, the 23 licensing, and all the other kinds of things, the 24 work, if you will.
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225 1 MS. ALLEN: But the states would not write 2 their own regulations.
3 MR. MYERS: Right.
4 VOICE: What about Federal facilities 5 under delegation?
6 MS. ALLEN: Under a delegated program --
7 MR. MYERS: Probably NRC would continue to 8 retain that, because they already have it now.
9 MS. ALLEN: I was going to say the states 10 could probably do it, then.
11 MR. MYERS: But states could do it under 12 contract.
13 MS. ALLEN: Under contract.
14 MR. MYERS: But you could do contract 15 under any of that if you wanted.
16 MR. CAMERON: Are these all that you have 17 before Kathy's, or do you have more?
18 MR. MYERS: No. That's basically the four 19 options other than the last one.
20 MR. CAMERON: Does the group want to ask 21 questions about each of these?
22 I mean, I think we can go in -- what we 23 should do is perhaps go in and discuss each one of 24 these and bring up some of these various perspectives.
25 But you might have lots of questions about them, too.
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226 1 MR. MYERS: If I can add something, Chip.
2 MR. CAMERON: Yes.
3 MR. MYERS: One of the things to think 4 about maybe that would help us out a lot in looking at 5 these options up here is to try to in your mind think 6 about what the role of the NRC is in each one of those 7 options, what is the role of an agreement state under 8 that option, and a non-agreement state under that 9 option? Who are the players?
10 MS. ALLEN: And organizations such as OAS, 11 CRCPD, and standard setting organizations.
12 MR. MYERS: Right.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, maybe what we 14 should do is get the Alliance concept out on the table 15 and then use the break time, and I can try to organize 16 this a little bit just so that, you know, we can have 17 room to write beside them.
18 MR. MYERS: Okay. That works.
19 MS. ALLEN: Okay.
20 MR. CAMERON: And we can do a comparison 21 that way and check in with some of these things to see 22 how the things are covered.
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227 1 under those types of organizations? And what type of 2 an enforcement, or how do you get compliance under 3 those kinds of organizations?
4 In other words, is it okay to have 5 outliers who don't want to participate in it, or what 6 do you do with the person who doesn't want to -- or 7 state that doesn't want to participate, or maybe they 8 don't participate to the full level of everybody else?
9 You know, those are the kinds of things to 10 think about.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And I think that 12 maybe what we'll do is we'll come back and go through 13 these, but also answer questions about them to make 14 sure people understand the concept. And then we'll 15 analyze them from a number of different viewpoints.
16 And now we come to the Alliance concept, 17 Number 5. All right.
18 MS. ALLEN: This Alliance concept is 19 similar to the information that --
20 MR. MYERS: One second. She's not 21 Italian, but she speaks with her hands, so I'm going 22 to move way over here. She's kind of excited about 23 this.
24 MS. ALLEN: Fine.
25 VOICE: That was loaded.
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228 1 (General laughter.)
2 MS. ALLEN: The Alliance concept has been 3 sort of discussed in the health physics articles that 4 we've written. And we presented some of this 5 information at the Organization of Agreement States in 6 October of this year.
7 And we looked at some of the problems with 8 states and the NRC, problems with functionality, 9 sharing of resources, sharing information, how to 10 streamline what we're doing, and tried to come up with 11 some way to get our hands around some sort of way of 12 changing what we're doing.
13 So we came up with this thing called an 14 Alliance. And we envision it to be like a Peanut 15 M&M -- we're very food focused -- where there is a 16 central -- where all the states and the NRC come 17 together to sort of share -- his --
18 I wanted to know if you wore that tie on 19 purpose, because we had pictures of M&Ms at the OAS 20 meeting. So -- sorry. Back to --
21 MR. CAMERON: Can we use thin mints so 22 Mike can explain this to his sister when he -- oh, 23 never mind.
24 (General laughter.)
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229 1 MS. ALLEN: One of the thoughts is, first 2 of all, we want everybody to start talking to each 3 other and sharing information and sharing goals and 4 setting priorities.
5 So an Alliance would be some way of 6 getting all the states and the NRC together to 7 jointly, by using some sort of a consensus process, 8 establish priorities for developing regulations, 9 inspection guidance, licensing guidance, inspection 10 and licensing frequencies, materials to be inspected, 11 standards development.
12 What do we need? What types of things are 13 Band-Aid fixes that bunches of people are running off 14 and doing? What things can we work together on?
15 So the idea is to get everybody together 16 and say, What are our priorities for this year, next 17 year, and the year after, three years out, maybe?
18 Because NRC happens to do a budget that goes out like 19 three years. Right? So we do have to kind of look 20 out for a period of time.
21 And this would be an open process where 22 all the states come and say, Well, you know, I think 23 intravascular brachitherapy is really hot, and we'd 24 like some guidance on this; gee, patient release 25 criteria, we'd like better mathematical models for our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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230 1 licensees to use to figure out when to release 2 patients, how to deal with patient release, what 3 materials should be included.
4 By having these discussions, then, all of 5 the states weigh in and the NRC equally, and we say, 6 What kinds of things are our priorities?
7 It could be that it's fluoroscopy 8 procedures, something that NRC doesn't have any 9 control over. But states are really wrestling with 10 this particular issue, and we agree that we need to 11 write some new fluoroscopy type procedures.
12 Well, at the end of some discussion 13 about -- this is sort of what we envision. We'd have 14 some sort of discussion and come up with priorities of 15 what types of things need to be addressed, what kinds 16 of standards are needed. And this is good, then, for 17 organizations that are willing to go back and write 18 standards.
19 Are the professional societies willing to 20 go back and provide guidance to their members to 21 figure out, can we work with the states or the 22 regulatory agencies to create some sort of guidance to 23 give to our licensees so that they can release 24 patients so that the regulators are happy, the 25 patients are happy, and the care providers are happy?
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231 1 That would be great, rather than going 2 around to every single state saying, Okay, what do you 3 want, and what do you want, and what does NRC want, 4 and what are the limits? Is it 100? Is it 500? You 5 know, how are we going to classify these things?
6 Same thing with manufacturers with new 7 technologies. Bring them to some sort of central 8 point organization and say, Look, I have new 9 dosimetry. Your regulations prohibit its use. I 10 think you should allow it. State the case, and we can 11 look at it.
12 And instead of going around from state to 13 state, create some sort of time/place mechanism for 14 these types of issues to come out. So then we end up 15 with like a list of things that should be done. Now 16 we have to dedicate resources to it.
17 If the top priority is fluoroscopy, NRC 18 can say, Not mine, we don't do this, it doesn't exist.
19 So then states can say, Well, it's really important to 20 us. So states will then be able to dedicate resources 21 or commit resources to working on this issue.
22 Maybe the next thing is intravascular 23 brachitherapy, where NRC says, Hey, that's us, we're 24 playing in this. We've got like two licensees that 25 are really looking at this. And among the states we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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232 1 say, Well, we've got 300, so maybe we'd like to commit 2 some resources, and we need to write some regulations.
3 And instead of the old way of doing 4 business, where NRC has like eight people working on 5 a reg and there's a token state person, maybe it 6 becomes five different state people and a token NRC 7 person kind of working on these things.
8 Create a regulation that everybody has 9 buy-in on. It goes out to everybody at the same time.
10 And we all say, Okay, we like this. This is the way 11 it's going. These are the compatibility levels for 12 this rule. And everybody says, Great, we're going to 13 adopt it.
14 So NRC adopts it their way, the states 15 still have to follow their administrative procedures 16 acts separately and jointly -- whatever -- to 17 promulgate their regulations. But then, they all kind 18 of sort of happen at the same time, sort of trying to 19 streamline things.
20 Anyway, these are some ideas of what a 21 consensus and Alliance group could do. So you get all 22 the decision makers together maybe once a year, maybe 23 twice a year.
24 They identify centers of expertise. Who 25 really knows what's going on with these issues?
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233 1 Appoint those people to work on it, not a standing 2 committee of somebody that used to do this ten years 3 ago, but somebody who is doing it now and have those 4 people with the interest and the ability working on 5 it, plus getting the product done.
6 I mean, work on it, dedicate your 7 resources, and then go on. Instead of a whole bunch 8 of different things, focus on the important things, on 9 a national priority.
10 Maybe some of this stuff falls out, and it 11 doesn't get done this year. Okay. We have limited 12 resources. As long as we're still protective of 13 public health and safety, you know, maybe some of 14 these other things will have to wait.
15 Identify other resources that are out 16 there or that could be out there. I mean, we don't 17 use standard setting organizations as much as we 18 should. We don't go back to the industry to say, You 19 guys could really help if you would figure out this.
20 You guys figure out the best way to 21 calibrate this type of equipment and come out with 22 guides. Rather than having us write a regulation to 23 tell people how to calibrate equipment, the 24 manufacturers probably know best.
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234 1 There would have to be some sort of 2 administrative support, either along the -- if you're 3 familiar with the Health Physics Society -- if I'm 4 talking too fast, just wave your hands.
5 The Health Physics Society has a core, 6 Burke & Associates, I think it is, and they do the 7 administrative stuff. They, you know, do the 8 newsletter, whatever, they put together meetings, they 9 make sure that information is shared among the 10 members.
11 The CRCPD, the Conference of Radiation 12 Control Program Directors, has the same type of thing 13 where there's this group that facilitates the 14 meetings, shares the information, makes sure that the 15 Website is updated.
16 There should still be some sort of way for 17 all of us collectively to share this information, a 18 clearing house of information. And maybe the NRC's 19 Website is the right place. And maybe because they 20 have expertise in this area, they could do that.
21 You find out who is best to do some of 22 these things, and you let them do it on behalf of the 23 group. The administrative support is not a decision 24 maker. The decision makers are the regulatory 25 agencies or representatives of them.
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235 1 If somebody's got an issue, they can bring 2 it, then, to this Alliance type thing instead of 3 petitioning bunches of organizations.
4 And now, the stakeholders have to get 5 involved in this as well. By making this process a 6 little more open. Instead of, By the way, here's a 7 proposed rule, or, By the way, here's our regulatory 8 agenda and we plan on working on these things, maybe 9 you have input into the regulatory agenda or you're 10 there while we're discussing what the regulatory 11 agenda should be.
12 In either case everybody sort of knows the 13 top five issues that are going to be addressed this 14 year, then next year, and the year after.
15 If there's something that's on your radar 16 screen that's not there, you've got time then to, you 17 know, grab us by the lapels and say, I really need 18 this fixed, this is a really big problem, and this is 19 why, and gain some support for us to look at these 20 things.
21 Now, this doesn't prohibit somebody from 22 coming in and saying, We haven't thought about this 23 new technology that's lurking in the corner, and here 24 it is year two, and it's not -- we didn't know that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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236 1 this was coming, and, surprise, here's this brand new 2 technology.
3 We want this thing to be flexible enough 4 for some people to say, Hey, yes. This is really 5 important. We're going to work on it anyway.
6 And we'll tell the Alliance, This wasn't 7 on our radar screen, but this is important to us. A 8 licensee has petitioned us, there has been some sort 9 of incident in our particular state, our Governor 10 really has a bug about this, and so we have to work on 11 this particular issue. We're going to be working on 12 it.
13 But we'll share what we've done so that if 14 somebody else runs into the same bug, then, maybe they 15 can sort of use what we've done and build on it or use 16 it.
17 We're looking at a range of things. I 18 mean, this is just sort of -- this sounds really 19 happy, but --
20 (General laughter.)
21 MS. ALLEN: -- but it's going to be kind 22 of difficult. I mean, getting 32 states to sit around 23 the table and all agree on something is pretty darn 24 impossible except where to go for dinner or --
25 MS. McBURNEY: Not even that.
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237 1 MR. GODWIN: You couldn't pull that off.
2 MS. ALLEN: No, no, no. To eat dinner or 3 not. That's it.
4 But we recognize that it cannot be, you 5 know, a unanimous type thing, it will be a sort of 6 consensus type process.
7 Now, in this there are some questions 8 about who plays what role. Should NRC still be a 9 central role? Should NRC still have authority?
10 Should they have veto power? Should they, you know, 11 come down -- are they the ones that track the progress 12 on these types of things?
13 There are a range of things that we can do 14 now. And in fact, even at the Organization of 15 Agreement States meeting, we discussed the fact that 16 we don't always share our needs with one another.
17 And Terry over here said, Well, we have a 18 need for positron emission tomography guidance. Some 19 of us have done it, some of us have not. We're not 20 sharing it with the rest of the states. And he 21 volunteered out of the blue to just sort of 22 coordinate, consolidate information from all of the 23 states on PET.
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238 1 are virtually working -- not meeting, but -- all 2 right -- working in virtual space. Thank you. Can 3 you fix that on the transcript?
4 (General laughter.)
5 MS. ALLEN: It's saving resources, but 6 it's going to be very beneficial to the rest of the 7 states who previously were finding themselves saying, 8 PET, PET; oh, my gosh, that's an accelerator. Oh, 9 man. And then they would have to call 20 or 30 people 10 to say, Did you do this, have you done that, what have 11 you got?
12 This way there will be information to 13 share. Some will be really minor changes; some are 14 things that are actually happening right now.
15 Some of the stuff that you guys have 16 discussed today, you know, we can go back and say, 17 Well, maybe there are things that we can fix 18 administratively between states and NRC. Maybe there 19 are some things that we can fix just with a two-by-20 four, you know. Can we fix this? Can we work 21 together on these things now?
22 Maybe there are things that we will have 23 to change some statutes or some regulations or some 24 even agreements that we've already signed.
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239 1 There are minor changes and major changes.
2 There are things that -- we're looking at a whole 3 spectrum of things that may or may not change.
4 But if nothing flies, the fact that we are 5 sitting down and discussing it, admitting that we have 6 a problem, isn't that one of the first steps to fixing 7 a problem is admitting that you have one?
8 We've admitted that we don't coordinate 9 very well. We don't talk to each other enough. We 10 don't talk to each other about the right types of 11 things.
12 So you guys have been really helpful in 13 coming up with some other things that we had sort of 14 talked about and sort of threw on other pieces of 15 paper, and bringing them forward have been pretty 16 helpful.
17 So have I talked enough about the 18 Alliance? So I'm done with the Alliance thing, I 19 guess. Any questions?
20 MR. CAMERON: I see some cards up. But 21 what I'd like to do before we get into this discussion 22 is put up in one place for everybody to look at all of 23 these options and then a list of attributes, some of 24 the attributes, some of the attributes that we talked 25 about this morning along the side here so you can all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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240 1 refer to them as we then proceed to go through each 2 option one by one and to ask questions about them.
3 And that might be the best way to give you 4 feedback on that.
5 So what I would suggest is that -- and I 6 know, Bill and Jim, you've had your cards up. Why 7 don't we start with you when we come back from the 8 break? And I'll put this matrix up there for us. So 9 how about 25 to --
10 MS. ALLEN: Yes. That's good.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay?
12 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
13 MR. CAMERON: All right.
14 MS. ALLEN: Fifteen minutes.
15 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Fifteen.
16 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
17 MR. CAMERON: We're going to proceed to go 18 through the options and comparing those options to a 19 number of attributes.
20 And first of all I need to make sure that 21 I have all of the attributes captured here. And I'm 22 sorry. I thought this was going to come out in a more 23 readable form. But we'll go through these so that you 24 can know what these are.
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241 1 But I want to make sure I've got the right 2 attributes here. And I'll explain these to you.
3 I wanted to give Bill Fields just a quick 4 opportunity before we got started. He wanted to say 5 a few words to the group.
6 MR. FIELDS: That's Bill Fields. Where 7 does change take place? Change takes place in the 8 future. Therefore, you can't think in the past to 9 create change. You have to think in the future.
10 And to think in the future, how can we do 11 that? Well, we could get on the yellow bus on PBS, 12 and we could take a trip into the future, into the 13 year 2005, 2010. And we can look back on those past 14 years and see all of the things that we wanted to 15 accomplish that have been accomplished.
16 But while we're out in the future there's 17 this gap between today and 2010, for example. But we 18 can go back to 2001, and we can dream of the changes 19 that we want to make that will get us to the point 20 that we want to be in 2010 with all or any of these 21 programs.
22 But it has to be positive thinking. We 23 can't say, Well, we couldn't do that before, we can't 24 do it. There's no way; there's no money; there's no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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242 1 personnel; there's no regulations; there's too many 2 regulations; we can't do that.
3 We've got to stop now, and we've got to 4 think positive into the future. And all of this, if 5 it's sold to you, then, you can sell it to anyone.
6 And once it's sold, it becomes the truth 7 in fact, and that's it. It's all accomplished. And 8 it didn't take much effort but a bus ride. That's all 9 I have to say.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Bill.
11 That's a good watchword for the group as they go 12 through this exercise, I think, to be positive and 13 perhaps think a little bit outside the box and see 14 what we can come up with here. So thank you for that.
15 First I just want to run through these 16 options. And Jim is going to -- is that why you're 17 doing that?
18 MS. ALLEN: Yes. Because he had his card 19 up before.
20 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Jim is going to bring 21 his, because it fits under discussion of 5. Okay?
22 MS. ALLEN: All right.
23 MR. CAMERON: First option, Eliminate the 24 agreement state Program: NRC does it all, there are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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243 1 no agreement states. Okay? Just for a simple 2 description.
3 Second option, Streamline the NRC-4 agreement state Program: Do the minimum amount that 5 we need to. Okay. And people are going to have 6 questions about this. I just want to make sure that 7 all of these seem discreet to everybody, as discreet 8 options.
9 Third, the states do it all. There are 10 no, quote, NRC states. NRC's responsibility is only 11 for specific types of activities or licensees.
12 Fourth option is a delegated program. And 13 we may need to get into a little bit about that means, 14 obviously. But the NRC sets standards, and the states 15 implement.
16 Fifth option is the Alliance. agreement 17 states and NRC at least as a minimum share priority 18 setting, resources, and information on a consensus 19 basis.
20 Sixth is other options. I know Felix has 21 one; I think Bill House has one. We've heard about 22 we're getting on the yellow bus at 5:30. But there 23 may be other options there.
24 I'll just call these attributes for lack 25 of a better word. That may not be the best word.
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244 1 Okay. And I'm going to go through these. These are 2 based on our discussion from this morning.
3 And one is access to decision making. In 4 other words, how do the stakeholders have access to 5 decision making under these various options?
6 Two, budgetary/resource implications.
7 That could be the NRC problem that was talked about, 8 or it could be, what does this mean in terms of 9 existing state resource commitments?
10 The third one here is this idea of 11 efficiency. And I'm tagging onto Mark's description 12 of efficiency, which is, eliminate duplication, 13 identify best practices, the use of the term synergy.
14 Okay?
15 Fourth is comprehensive. Does it capture 16 all that needs to be captured in terms of activities 17 and materials?
18 Fifth is, How does it give flexibility?
19 And a related concept which I've put separately, the 20 uniformity/consistency.
21 Stability. And be stability I'm thinking 22 about Tony's comment on, how stable is the regulatory 23 scheme? Does another agency come in and set a 24 standard that just sort of pulls the rug out from 25 underneath, what you would do.
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245 1 What is the NRC role under all of these 2 schemes? What is the role of other organizations:
3 Feds, ISCORS, CRCPD, OAS. I'm using SDOs, standards 4 development organizations. Right?
5 And I guess models really is maybe an 6 option generating for down here under 6.
7 But Bob Leopold suggested -- and I think 8 it's a great idea -- that we just go to each option 9 and go down through all of those attributes and hear 10 what everybody has to say on that particular 11 attribute, just go down the list for each option.
12 Does anybody have any problems with that?
13 Cindy.
14 MS. PEDERSON: Not a problem, but maybe 15 something to add to that list of attributes.
16 MR. CAMERON: Oh. Good. Let's add to the 17 list.
18 MS. PEDERSON: Accountability. Who is 19 accountable?
20 MR. CAMERON: Accountability. Okay.
21 Let's add that, then. We can put a finer point on 22 what that means when we use it under the first 23 example; accountability.
24 Is there other things that aren't captured 25 up there? Mark.
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246 1 MR. DORUFF: Perhaps this was covered 2 under another one of those attributes. But I think we 3 need to speak more specifically in terms of some 4 legislative mandate upon which this can all be based.
5 So --
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So the need for 7 legislative -- like legislative reform?
8 MR. DORUFF: You need a remit for this to 9 happen. Otherwise, ultimately it will be challenged.
10 And there needs to be some legislative legal basis for 11 what it is we're doing here.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
13 MS. ALLEN: Something to bind people 14 together to make them do it.
15 MR. CAMERON: Let me put it up here early.
16 I'll just say, legislative authority.
17 VOICE: Legal authority.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
19 MS. ALLEN: Yes. Because it could be --
20 VOICE: It might not need legislation, but 21 it would still be legal.
22 MR. DORUFF: Yes.
23 MS. ALLEN: Right. I could be an MOU, a 24 really good handshake, something like that.
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247 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Legal authority.
2 Mike.
3 MR. VEILUVA: Well, an attribute -- which 4 I guess the Alliance concept is really unique, but it 5 really could coexist with virtually all of these 6 except maybe one, because then you wouldn't need the 7 Alliance.
8 But if the Alliance is something other 9 than a formal agency action, it's not really 10 inconsistent with any of the other ones, it's a 11 facilitator.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we'll have to see 13 if that hangs true with what you guys are thinking of.
14 But I'll just put a little footnote here, 15 Combination of options. In other words, you could do 16 4 in combination with that.
17 VOICE: It needs something else that like 18 marks it to make it in concrete so people actually do 19 play.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And remember to -- I 21 know it's natural to talk to each other, but you've 22 got to sort of talk towards Barbara for her to get it 23 on the transcript.
24 Okay. Eliminate agreement state Program, 25 NRC does it all, the first option.
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248 1 MR. FRAZEE: Can we get Number 6 and 7 on 2 the table?
3 MS. ALLEN: Other options.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Felix, can you give 5 us a quick summary of your option? And then we can go 6 and discuss it like we will the others.
7 MR. KILLAR: Well, I actually happen to 8 have a pass-out here. I only brought 25 copies of 9 this, so there may not be enough to go around to 10 everybody.
11 MR. CAMERON: Well, while you're doing 12 that, why don't you give us just a -- we'll put, 6:
13 NEI. And what does that -- can you --
14 VOICE: NEI takes over all 15 responsibilities.
16 MR. KILLAR: Yes. The industry does it 17 all. And we tell you guys in the regulatory community 18 we're doing it great.
19 MR. CAMERON: Oh. This is self-20 regulation?
21 (General laughter.)
22 MR. KILLAR: To an extent.
23 MR. CAMERON: Oh.
24 MR. KILLAR: No, no.
25 (General laughter.)
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249 1 MR. KILLAR: Let me give you a little 2 background just to introduce the concept and stuff.
3 What this grew out of is that we were at 4 a briefing the NRC was having with the Commissioners 5 dealing with the status of programs inside NMSS.
6 One of the things that came up during the 7 briefing was a discussion of the master material 8 licensees for Federal agencies.
9 Following that briefing I met with Carl 10 Peppero [phonetic] and Mike Webber [phonetic] and 11 said, Hey, we like that concept. Would you be willing 12 to extend that type concept to commercial licensees?
13 And Carl said he felt that that would be 14 something that they could possibly do if the licensees 15 are interested in doing that.
16 So we went back and kind of put together 17 a small group to talk about it, see what kind of 18 interest there is in doing it along that lines, and 19 what are some of the attributes, efficiencies, 20 problems, legal and otherwise, to do this?
21 And so basically what this is a concept 22 paper for what we call the master material licensing.
23 And this is strictly a concept as we continue to 24 develop this.
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250 1 And as I heard this morning in this 2 discussion, because we have not had any interaction 3 with the agreement states, I can see some things that 4 we can do in here to address some of the issues that 5 were raised this morning and what-have-you.
6 But basically what we're after is one 7 national license for a facility. And when I say a 8 facility, it would be a company, a product, or a 9 service that works in multiple states.
10 So you take somebody like a well logger 11 who goes to several different states or a 12 radiopharmaceutical company radiopharmaceutical 13 distribution houses throughout the various states, 14 what-have-you, they will have one license issued by 15 the NRC. That license will establish all of the 16 requirements for any of their applications throughout 17 the states that they're in.
18 The NRC would be the licensing and 19 reviewing body, but they would have input from any 20 state that this facility is going to be in. So when 21 they come in for their license application, they say, 22 We're going to be in X, Y, and Z states. The NRC 23 would involve X, Y, and Z in reviewing that 24 application to ensure that their concerns are 25 addressed.
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251 1 Then, after the license is issued what 2 happens is that the state becomes the inspector for 3 the NRC for these facilities in their individual 4 states.
5 This has a number of benefits for the NRC 6 as well as for the licensee and for the states.
7 For the NRC, it addresses a number of the 8 concerns that were raised this morning a about the NRC 9 losing contact with some of the various licensings 10 because those activities haven't been brought to the 11 NRC, they're being licensed in individual states.
12 It also provides consistency for the 13 development of regulations and for the application of 14 regulations, because the NRC then sees this thing 15 throughout the country as to how it's being applied.
16 It also provides consistency in the 17 application itself, because what happens is that you 18 have the individual states out there being the 19 inspectors.
20 And so where you may have a 21 radiopharmaceutical house that's applying the 22 radiation protection program in eight or ten states, 23 you now have ten different states out there that are 24 doing the inspection. And one state may identify an 25 issue which the other states didn't.
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252 1 And so that would be circled back to the 2 NRC, and then the balance of the facilities would look 3 to see if this is something that's a systemic problem 4 with that or if it's unique to that individual 5 facility. And so it gives the benefit, then, of 6 having multiple reviews of basically the same 7 application.
8 From a licensing perspective, the fees are 9 something, but we don't think the fees are really the 10 big issue.
11 It's more along the lines of what Fred 12 talked about as consistency, in that, now we've 13 established a radiation protection program, and we use 14 that radiation protection program uniformly across how 15 ever many facilities there are rather than, when 16 you're in ten different states, we have ten different 17 versions of that radiation protection program.
18 We now only have one radiation protection 19 program, we have one standard method of training for 20 our people that are in those facilities. So we have 21 the benefit of doing that along those lines.
22 So let's talk a little bit through our 23 fees, because we talked about it this morning.
24 One of the things that the NRC has 25 indicated is a concern about, you know, losing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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253 1 licensees. And therefore, while they still have 2 overall responsibility for development of regulations, 3 they don't have the revenue source that they 4 previously had.
5 With this program the licensee or the 6 applicant for the license will still be paying a fee 7 to the NRC, so the NRC will still have some fees 8 available to them.
9 The states also will still get the 10 benefits of fees, because they will pay fees to the 11 states for the registration to use that application in 12 their state, plus they pay the state for the special 13 program. And this would be in accordance with the 14 state regulations.
15 I think it goes through and talks a little 16 bit about the benefits to the NRC, the agreement 17 states, the licensees, and things along that line, so 18 I won't go into that.
19 I think the one issue, though, the bottom 20 line of this, that -- and when we go back and start 21 talking about the other programs, the big issue that 22 we have is that this program is beneficial as it is 23 with the existing way the program works. But it would 24 be a lot more practical if the NRC would have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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254 1 jurisdiction for NARM when we're dealing with these 2 type of facilities.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we'll get to 4 that. Good. Thank you, Felix, for developing that 5 and summarizing it.
6 MR. KILLAR: Is there any questions about 7 this?
8 VOICE: What about machine-produced 9 radiation?
10 MR. KILLAR: We have stayed away from 11 machine-produced radiation, because most of my members 12 for the most part aren't involved in machine-produced, 13 plus I don't think the NRC is quite ready to take on 14 the machine-produced. I think their ready to take on 15 NARM and NORM, but I don't think they're ready to take 16 on machine-produced.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Do you want to ask --
18 do you want to --
19 VOICE: Well, I just want to know, what 20 type of licensees do you see fitting under this?
21 MR. KILLAR: This would be any licensee 22 who is doing the same application, product, or service 23 in multiple states.
24 So it could be a -- and it takes a little 25 bit off of the source and device type registry in that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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255 1 you have one licensee for that source and device, the 2 NRC, and then, that automatically can be applied in 3 all the states.
4 Like I say, it could be Part 36 5 radiography or a radiator facility and stuff. They 6 license that type facility, and they could apply it at 7 many different facilities.
8 A medical application, where it's a 9 hospital who has -- or a hospital corporation that has 10 multiple hospitals across the country, they set up one 11 license for all those hospitals, and the radiation 12 protection program -- oh.
13 MR. CAMERON: But it's only for 14 multiple -- it has to involve multiple state licenses?
15 MR. KILLAR: That was the initial intent.
16 Now, what I heard this morning is that if a licensee 17 wants to do it in a particular state, for the purpose 18 that he may want to go to more states in the future, 19 he could possibly go in and ask for this under the 20 NRC, and the NRC could grant it with that particular 21 state that he's working in. But the intent was for --
22 MR. CAMERON: But the agreement state 23 Program still exists for single state licensees?
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256 1 master material license may have some benefits to me, 2 but I also already have my program established. I've 3 got reciprocity with these states.
4 I don't want to change the way I'm 5 licensing, so I'm just going to continue doing 6 business the way I'm doing it.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Aubrey, another 8 question on this? And then we're going to go to Bill 9 House.
10 MR. GODWIN: Yes. I have a slight problem 11 with the way it's described at this point. It may not 12 be what he's considering.
13 But we had a national pharmaceutical 14 company that had some problems in, as it turned out, 15 the NRC jurisdiction and not in the agreement states.
16 And with this kind of concept, that would 17 have forced all of their licensees to have done a 18 rather elaborate follow-up program. And some states 19 did, some states did not do that.
20 I don't see any way for a state to look at 21 the situation in their state and how well that local 22 facility is following their regulations and take 23 action based upon it either to not stop their 24 operations because they're compliant because somewhere 25 else they had a problem.
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257 1 Or in the case where that particular 2 facility, for some reason that manager just is not 3 going to follow the regulations, and it needs to be 4 shut down without adversely having to go and shut 5 everything down somewhere else.
6 So I think you need to look at the 7 enforcement aspect of it to make sure that there's an 8 ability for the jurisdiction to look at enforcement at 9 those things within their jurisdiction without 10 necessarily having to go to anybody else's 11 jurisdiction to ask about it.
12 MR. KILLAR: All right. And we had 13 thought about that. And the idea is along the lines 14 of what you're saying, is that if, for instance, 15 Arizona goes into a radiopharmaceutical house, and 16 they find that the house isn't complying with their 17 license, the state of Arizona has the right to shut 18 down that facility.
19 Now, the question goes back, then, to the 20 NRC, Is this something that's unique to that facility 21 in Arizona, or does it apply to all the 22 radiopharmaceutical houses? So it goes back 23 automatically to them.
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258 1 may not impact all of the rest of them, where they may 2 have a systemic problem that does go to all those 3 facilities.
4 This actually generates more than --
5 MR. GODWIN: Well, there are ways they do 6 filter that information back. It's not a good system, 7 I don't think, but --
8 MR. KILLAR: Well, this makes a more 9 formalized system for doing that, because there is a 10 master license. So all inspections reports and what-11 have-you would come back to the NRC and any 12 enforcement action would come back to the NRC to see 13 if that is something that is unique to a particular 14 facility.
15 MR. GODWIN: That's not very clearly 16 spelled out.
17 MR. KILLAR: No. I realize that.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Do we have enough 19 level of information on this so that -- I mean, we can 20 get into as much detail as we want when we go to it.
21 But do we have enough information so that we can 22 proceed to get any other options on the table? And 23 Bill, you had something else.
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259 1 Program, it's a select number of licensees. It's not 2 really an option for a national program.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And that comment, 4 let's save that comment and come back to it. And 5 again, think about combinations of options, too.
6 Okay? Kathy.
7 MS. ALLEN: I promise I'll be quick. If 8 there was a licensee under this program that was going 9 to do business in Arizona, Texas, California, and 10 Florida, would you still envision having -- those are 11 all agreement states.
12 Would you still envision that entity 13 having to go to NRC for such a master materials 14 license, or are you looking at possibly allowing one 15 of those agreement states where maybe the corporate 16 headquarters was -- are you looking at something that 17 only the NRC would be issuing or that agreement states 18 could also issue?
19 MR. KILLAR: We envision this being issued 20 by the NRC so it would be recognized in all the 21 states.
22 One of the things, in line with what you 23 were talking about this morning, with the expertise 24 maybe being in individual states is that if the 25 expertise is in Illinois but they're wanting to do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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260 1 this same application in Florida, Kentucky, and 2 somewhere else, is maybe the NRC would say, Hey, look, 3 Illinois, you have the expertise in this.
4 These guys have asked for master materials 5 licensees. Would you help us review this and assure 6 that all your concerns are built in? We will issue 7 the license, but we would depend on you for the 8 review.
9 The thing is that the NRC is the only one 10 that allows you to cross jurisdictional lines. If 11 it's a license issued by Illinois, it doesn't 12 automatically allow you to cross jurisdictional lines 13 into other states.
14 MS. ALLEN: That's what I was just trying 15 to get at. All right.
16 MR. CAMERON: All right. Okay. Let's get 17 this seventh option on there. Bill House, what do you 18 have to tell us?
19 MR. HOUSE: Okay. My option is not as 20 well developed as Felix's, but I want to throw it out 21 anyway since we're talking about extremes here.
22 I've been an agreement state regulator in 23 years past, and I'm also a licensee of the NRC and of 24 a number of agreement states.
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261 1 And within the agreement state, just 2 taking South Carolina, the primary group within the 3 agency has changed a number of times.
4 Currently the disposal site at Barnwell is 5 within the solid houses waste group; i.e., the 6 equivalent of EPA RCRA.
7 And you know, I'm really getting 8 ambivalent about who is the boss, because, you know, 9 the facts are that the goals have always been the 10 same, health and safety first and compliance second.
11 And that may not be the same. You know, compliance 12 may not mean health and safety.
13 But anyway, you know, here we are in year 14 2001. And after the baby is weaned, it doesn't really 15 matter who the is the mamma or who is the daddy.
16 So I suggest that EPA be the lead agency 17 and NRC and the agreement states fall subservient, 18 quote, unquote, under EPA.
19 Any alliance or organization or system 20 that we set up, EPA is going to be involved. They're 21 already setting standards, they're involved in 22 radiation control. So let's just let them be the 23 daddy and move on.
24 MR. CAMERON: So this is a "EPA is the 25 daddy" approach.
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262 1 MS. McBURNEY: Is this just for low-level 2 waste? MR. HOUSE: Say what?
3 MS. McBURNEY: Is this just for waste?
4 MR. HOUSE: No. Everything.
5 VOICE: Everything? Oh.
6 MR. HOUSE: Everything.
7 (General laughter.)
8 MR. HOUSE: They think they control it all 9 now, so let's just let them do it.
10 MR. KILLAR: Maybe, to emphasize Bill's 11 point, this may not be so far-fetched, because if you 12 go back and look at the Atomic Energy Act, EPA is the 13 lead agency. EPA has the responsibility to establish 14 the Federal regulatory guidelines for radiation as set 15 up under Guideline 13, I believe it is.
16 And that is the national standard that is 17 set up by EPA. So they already have the overall 18 responsibility.
19 MR. CAMERON: I think that maybe a number 20 of the lawyers might be arguing about that.
21 But regardless of what it is now is that 22 EPA would set the standards that NRC and agreement 23 states -- there would be an agreement state Program, 24 or EPA would take over all radiation protection and 25 delegate --
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263 1 MR. HOUSE: EPA authorization program.
2 MR. CAMERON: So it would be like an EPA 3 Clean Water or Clean Air Act. Okay. So EPA 4 delegated.
5 MR. MYERS: If one of the co-chairs could 6 just kind of put this together, is this "The EPA is 7 the daddy of the mother of all programs"?
8 VOICE: Right.
9 (General laughter.)
10 MR. MYERS: Is that it? Okay.
11 VOICE: That's what it would be.
12 MR. CAMERON: All right. Now, while 13 we're -- we may generate other options or combinations 14 of options. But does anybody have a -- and Aubrey, 15 I'm not forgetting your regional -- I'll put it down 16 here as like -- I'll just put, regional approach, that 17 you suggested.
18 MR. GODWIN: Well, I looked at that as 19 possibly being attached to and subordinate to some of 20 the others, not necessarily being a --
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
22 MR. GODWIN: But we can do it either way.
23 It doesn't matter.
24 MR. CAMERON: Well, just let's keep it as 25 a place holder.
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264 1 MR. GODWIN: All right.
2 MR. CAMERON: Anybody else have any major 3 options that they want to put on the table now?
4 Terry.
5 MR. FRAZEE: There's usually the status 6 quo option, no action. Is Number 2 close to that?
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. That's a good point.
8 It has some of it in there.
9 MS. ALLEN: Oh. Yes. I'm sorry. That is 10 one of the things that the working group is doing. We 11 are actually describing the status quo and looking at 12 what's working and what doesn't work in the status 13 quo.
14 MR. CAMERON: And that sort of gets to the 15 heart of the matter, doesn't it? Okay. I just put 16 that on there as a reminder.
17 And I think that the specific questions 18 that we had on the agenda for tomorrow are all 19 captured in this framework. So our work between now 20 and tomorrow at noon will be to go through these 21 options and talk about these various attributes. And 22 that may generate other options. But that's what 23 we'll proceed with.
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265 1 And I think that we -- let's see. What 2 did we have as our ending time today in case people 3 made plans on --
4 VOICE: 5:30.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We'll try to run to 6 5:30. And then we'll continue tomorrow morning.
7 And for those of you who might have to 8 leave today before 5:30, we'll do a reprise tomorrow 9 morning a little bit, not a full discussion, but we'll 10 catch people up on what happened after they left.
11 Okay. Eliminate agreement state Program, 12 NRC does it all. Access to decision making for 13 stakeholders. And do we compare this to the existing 14 program? Because it may be a neutral.
15 MR. GODWIN: It's easier for the national 16 stakeholders, and it's poorer for the local 17 stakeholders.
18 MR. CAMERON: So easy for national, harder 19 for local.
20 MR. GODWIN: Where you have local issues, 21 they would just never get heard there.
22 MR. ENTWISTLE: I'd change to "easier" 23 rather than --
24 (General laughter.)
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266 1 MR. CAMERON: Yes. We don't want to make 2 anything easy. I'm sorry. Okay. Thanks, Fred.
3 Okay. Easier for national, harder for 4 locals. Anybody else want -- and we may want to run 5 through this fairly efficiently. But anybody else on 6 that one?
7 MR. DORUFF: Do we really want to say, 8 Eliminate agreement state Programs, or do we want to 9 say, Eliminate all state programs? NRC does it all, 10 does that mean give them jurisdiction for NARM and 11 everything else?
12 MR. CAMERON: I guess that's an 13 outstanding question. If it was -- it depends on how 14 it meets the -- on its face it doesn't meet the 15 comprehensive attribute, does it?
16 MR. MYERS: You could have a variety of 17 options under the options, and that's one of the 18 things that the working group has struggled with.
19 So you could have a Number 1(a), Eliminate 20 the agreement state Program and NRC does it all, 21 retaining, I guess, other programs in the state.
22 And then, you could have 1(b), which would 23 be, NRC literally does it all, it assumes all 24 materials, X-ray machines, the whole bit.
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267 1 MS. ALLEN: Well, can we maybe streamline 2 this and maybe with a show of hands just say for all 3 arguments here just assume when we talk about 4 materials we're talking about all materials, and not 5 NARM, NORM, X-ray?
6 MR. CAMERON: Let me ask you a question.
7 Are there some options that would lend themselves more 8 to a comprehensive approach rather than the fragmented 9 approach? I mean, do you want to have a show of hands 10 on how many people think that under this approach it 11 should be comprehensive versus noncomprehensive?
12 MS. ALLEN: Maybe it's just sort of in 13 general. Is it worth -- I mean, should we -- maybe 14 this is just a generic question at first. Should we 15 look at NRC seeking authority for NARM? And then, 16 assuming that something happens to do that, that that 17 might actually happen.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's talk about 19 this. Let's get this NARM thing settled. Okay?
20 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
21 MR. CAMERON: Dave.
22 MR. MINNAAR: I think we're sort of 23 touching on perceptions of practicality. You know, 24 there are just practical realities out there about 25 what can be achieved reasonably and what can't. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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268 1 I think that ties in. Maybe that's an attribute or 2 somehow captured in one of those attributes.
3 But for example, Jim mentioned sort of 4 three subdivisions, NRC does it all, one being they do 5 it all under AEA; they do it all with AEA modified to 6 include NARM; they do it all with even X-ray, all 7 ionizing radiation.
8 I think that last one is probably not 9 practical currently, maybe in 20 years, but certainly 10 not now.
11 So you know, what's practical in terms of 12 problem solving realistically in the near future 13 versus problem solving long-term I think enters into 14 the discussion about what we're doing.
15 So somehow we've got to draw lines about 16 what's reasonable to pursue and what's altruistic or 17 wishful thinking, thinking about Utopia. Who knows, 18 you know?
19 There's certainly no limit to our thinking 20 about what we could do, but I think we have to be 21 practical. Where do we get into the --
22 MR. CAMERON: So you're talking about a 23 putting a practicality marker on there. Mike.
24 MR. VEILUVA: Well, there's a 25 jurisdictional issue and there's a delegation issue.
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269 1 Because as you being making exceptions 2 like the Tax Code for NARM and this and that, it 3 begins to shade in the 4, where NRC begins to delegate 4 aspects possibly of its jurisdiction rather than what 5 you've explained earlier, which is, when an agreement 6 state assumes responsibility, there isn't a delegation 7 of responsibility, it's gone.
8 So there's this overarching jurisdictional 9 issue. You can have NRC retain the jurisdiction. But 10 like the Clean Water Act or RCRA, you have states 11 administer elements of the program because they're 12 closer to it, because they understand the issues more.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Which is the fourth 14 option.
15 MR. VEILUVA: To me 1 shades into 4 16 almost, depending if you start laying markers and 17 exceptions to it.
18 MR. LEOPOLD: I thought 1 was the way it 19 used to be before the agreement state mechanism was 20 ever started. So those of you who are old enough to 21 know what that was, what was it?
22 (General laughter.)
23 MR. CAMERON: Tony, I guess that you're 24 the oldest, since I saw your hand up.
25 (General laughter.)
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270 1 MR. THOMPSON: I mean, it seems to me that 2 there is a division here that runs through all of them 3 right now that is reality, which is there are AEA 4 radiation materials and radiation materials that are 5 not subject to the Atomic Energy Act.
6 So the first question is, under whatever 7 option, are you going to look at it as only the AEA 8 materials that you have right now, or are you going to 9 go ahead and expand it to other things, whatever they 10 may be?
11 MR. CAMERON: And this goes to Kathy's 12 point. I mean, does the working group need to have --
13 I think what Tony said is right for all of these.
14 Does the working group need to have an 15 indication from people around the table about whether 16 they think that NRC should have NARM authority or that 17 if the states do it all, obviously the states already 18 have NARM authority. Kathy.
19 MS. ALLEN: I envision the final product 20 to have a discussion about NARM and NORM in it and 21 whether or not NRC regulating it would be an advantage 22 or disadvantage for various options.
23 I was just thinking, for the purposes of 24 our discussion and sorting through these options, 25 would it -- because this is not representative of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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271 1 whole country and opinions of all the states and 2 things like that.
3 So I was just thinking, for the options 4 and for the purposes of discussing here, is it worth 5 sort of figuring out if we should just agree to either 6 say we're going to assume it covers NARM or we're 7 going to assume that NRC no longer has -- I mean, make 8 one assumption just for the argument purposes.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. It seems like that 10 makes sense.
11 MR. MYERS: Yes. And I agree with that as 12 co-chair, because basically if you look at what the 13 Commission asked us to do, there is an implied task in 14 there or an implication that the Commission would take 15 the results of this or this product and look at the 16 options sometime in May.
17 And it was scheduled and planned I believe 18 so that they would make decisions concerning budgets 19 in the out-years sometime in the fall because it's 20 timed that way.
21 So I guess implicit in that is an 22 understanding that the Commission was looking for 23 something that was doable or partially implemented in 24 the near-term frame, but yet it would be robust enough 25 and flexible enough to go off into the future.
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272 1 And issues such as whether or not we get 2 into regulating NARM is an issue that we may not want 3 to address here, but certainly only address it in the 4 sense that whatever options are produced would be 5 flexible enough and robust enough to be able to 6 incorporate that into it if it's decided to do that.
7 MR. THOMPSON: If you bring it under the 8 Atomic Energy Act later, whatever function you have 9 here has to be able to deal with it.
10 MR. MYERS: Right.
11 MS. ALLEN: Right.
12 MR. CAMERON: So assume for purposes of 13 today's discussion that the reality is reflected, that 14 NRC does not have NARM?
15 VOICE: Right.
16 MS. ALLEN: I could go either way.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, Aubrey, go 18 ahead.
19 MR. GODWIN: Well, it seems to me that we 20 could proceed along the lines of considering this as 21 being the Atomic Energy Act materials plus discreet 22 NORM sources, which means sources of concentrations of 23 2,000 picocuries per gram or higher would be covered 24 by this.
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273 1 And sort of implied by that would be the 2 materials less than that concentration would be not 3 carried forward and would be presumably left to EPA 4 with the recognition that EPA eventually is going to 5 set the overall standards and NRC is implementing the 6 overall standards.
7 But NRC would pick up, then, a definite 8 level of involvement. It would have something clearly 9 to work with. It would match what they're used to 10 dealing with in terms of regulatory matters. But it 11 wouldn't take effect until they change the law to 12 bring it into the Atomic Energy Act.
13 And the delegation/release of authority 14 would be as it is in the current agreement state 15 arrangement if it comes into the Atomic Energy Act.
16 If it doesn't come into the Atomic Energy Act, it goes 17 probably the EPA route, which would be a delegation.
18 So I think we'll solve all of our problems 19 if we just look at it that way. I agree that we're 20 unlikely to get into X-ray and machine-produced stuff, 21 and I think that we might as well not worry about that 22 on the short term or medium term.
23 But I think this would give us something 24 to work with on the short and medium term and give the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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274 1 Commission some definite feeling for where to go with 2 it.
3 MR. CAMERON: Well, can we -- it may be 4 simpler to -- in order to get through this and get 5 some ideas down on all of it, it may be simpler to 6 just assume that we have the existing structure.
7 Okay?
8 And we may want to have a specific NARM 9 discussion if we have time to do that to consider the 10 types of things that Aubrey is talking about.
11 But I would also say that we keep this 12 comprehensive attribute up here, because it may be 13 that some of these options will allow some of those 14 dysfunctionalities or dichotomies of regulation.
15 Like the Alliance might be the best option 16 to try to rationalize approaches to different 17 material. I don't know.
18 But can we at least assume that the 19 current legislative framework is what we're going to 20 work with? Terry.
21 MR. FRAZEE: Current legislative 22 framework. This does not appear to be a short-term 23 solution or a medium-term solution. This is more like 24 a long-term solution because that on the face of it 25 requires the states to either -- the agreement states NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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275 1 to give up their agreements or NRC to abrogate all of 2 the agreements.
3 Or what would have to happen, the statute 4 has to change, because that's where the agreement 5 states are established, is in statute.
6 So eliminating the agreement state Program 7 means, number one, that has to be a long-term 8 legislative Congressional action changing the AEA.
9 MR. CAMERON: But --
10 MR. GODWIN: And that's exactly why I said 11 what I did.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Tell me what the 13 implications of that are for whether we're going to 14 leave NARM off of the table now.
15 MR. FRAZEE: Oh. Off the table?
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
17 MR. FRAZEE: Okay.
18 MR. CAMERON: And I see where you guys 19 were going with my phrase on that. Yes. Ruth.
20 MS. McBURNEY: The implication if states 21 are still left with NARM is that you still have a 22 fragmented system.
23 MR. GODWIN: Yes. It's still a mess.
24 MS. McBURNEY: You're still going to have 25 dual regulation of a lot of materials --
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276 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
2 MS. McBURNEY: -- of a lot of facilities.
3 MR. CAMERON: Well, then, let's note that 4 when we talk about this particular attribute.
5 MS. McBURNEY: Right.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
7 MR. FRAZEE: I don't think this one makes 8 sense unless you say that it includes NARM. If you're 9 going to open up the AEA to get rid of the Agreement 10 States Program, you might as well, you know, throw in 11 the NRC taking over NARM.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. I'll tell you what 13 we're going to do. We're going to ignore everything.
14 (General laughter.)
15 MR. CAMERON: No. When we get to 16 comprehensive, let's make these notes that you talked 17 about. Okay?
18 MS. ALLEN: Let's see what the consensus 19 is.
20 MR. CAMERON: And we'll just put it there.
21 All right?
22 Okay. How about budgetary/resource 23 implications, Number 1 option, Number 2 attribute?
24 MS. McBURNEY: Go way up on the NRC.
25 MR. CAMERON: So when you say, Way up --
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277 1 MS. McBURNEY: Yes. Up --
2 VOICE: The licensing fees are going to 3 increase.
4 MR. CAMERON: Oh. I see. Okay.
5 MS. McBURNEY: Well, I don't know if 6 licensing -- I don't know about fees, but the 7 resources --
8 VOICE: The NRC would have to triple its 9 staff.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. A big increase in NRC 11 resources. But what does it say in terms of this 12 indirect budget issue that we were talking about? In 13 other words, there wouldn't be this --
14 MS. McBURNEY: The denominator goes way 15 up, too.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
17 MR. KILLAR: It restores the funding, but 18 it also requires NRC to bring on additional resources 19 to implement the program.
20 MR. CAMERON: For states obviously it's 21 a --
22 MR. KILLAR: Well, actually it's a problem 23 for the states, because they'll lose some revenue.
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278 1 going to have to have their regulatory agencies and 2 their resources available to carry out the program.
3 MR. GODWIN: No, you don't. You can bail 4 out if you ain't got it.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So in other words, 6 like some of the resources that the state gets to do 7 AEA material is doubled up doing non-AEA material, is 8 what you're saying. Is that a true statement?
9 VOICE: Right.
10 MR. CAMERON: So if you lost all of your 11 AEA jurisdiction, okay, would you also be losing staff 12 that you would use on the non-AEA?
13 MR. GODWIN: Yes. I'd lose 90 percent of 14 it.
15 MS. McBURNEY: It would still have to be 16 doing inspections and licensing of certain --
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
18 MR. FRAZEE: In terms of the licensee, the 19 licensee, the licensee is going to pay more probably 20 in higher NRC fees on a relative scale, and they'll 21 still have to pay for NARM licensing through the 22 state.
23 MS. McBURNEY: If state law still required 24 them to be licensed.
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279 1 MS. ALLEN: Well, but Paul has a comment 2 over here.
3 MR. SCHMIDT: I do?
4 (General laughter.)
5 MS. ALLEN: Okay. Currently of all the 6 non-agreement states, only a few of them require 7 licensing of NARM. Some have registration like I do 8 in Wisconsin.
9 MR. SCHMIDT: Give me that back.
10 (General laughter.)
11 MS. ALLEN: And some have registration 12 before you get radioactive materials, some have 13 registration only annually, some have just 14 notification, and some don't do anything.
15 So when you look at impacts on states, if 16 you take away an agreement state Program, then, that 17 state has many options on what they're going to do 18 with the licensing of NARM. Either they license it, 19 they register it, they do nothing. So now you're 20 looking at a whole other bunch of options for what the 21 states will do.
22 MR. CAMERON: And as you pointed out, as 23 Terry and others pointed out, if indeed you did this 24 option, that NARM authority could be taken away NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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280 1 entirely once you were in there to do the legislation.
2 Right?
3 MS. ALLEN: Right.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
5 MS. ALLEN: And that would be cleaner.
6 MR. CAMERON: Right.
7 MR. SHOWALTER: Well, there's another 8 resource lessening impact perhaps here in terms of 9 transferring resources from states to NRC, and that is 10 NRC could contract for inspections, for example, with 11 states that used to be agreement states if the states 12 wanted to do that.
13 MR. CAMERON: This is all going on the 14 transcript for the benefit of the working group, so 15 I'm not going to try to capture all of this. But 16 there is a mitigating effect. Okay? And Aubrey.
17 MR. GODWIN: There's also a problem in 18 that when you lose staff and everything, you lose 19 emergency response for your transportation incidents, 20 for incidents at nearby facilities. They will have to 21 wait for them to come out to Phoenix from Dallas to 22 respond to the little problem they had leaking up 23 there in Kingman.
24 All of these incidents that we've been 25 taking care of like going out and checking the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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281 1 railroad cars and checking the trucks will have to 2 come out of Dallas from now on, I guess.
3 MS. ALLEN: Landfills.
4 MR. GODWIN: Oh. Yes. Landfills, don't 5 forget the landfills.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So we're identifying 7 potential resource impacts here from this type of 8 option.
9 Does anybody have anything more to add in 10 terms of resource options? We've been focusing on the 11 states and NRC licensees. You know, what's the impact 12 on you guys?
13 MR. DORUFF: There would be a significant 14 negative impact on the resources required for 15 licensees.
16 MR. CAMERON: So it would increase your 17 fees, compliance costs, both?
18 MR. DORUFF: Staff, and -- well, let me 19 think about that.
20 MR. LEOPOLD: Why would this be better 21 than Felix's proposal? You would only have one agency 22 to deal with. This is your ultimate, one license 23 anywhere in the country.
24 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Let's explore this 25 issue.
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282 1 MR. DORUFF: Well, wait a minute. I'm 2 considering this. Maybe I'm missing the boat here.
3 Are we talking about NARM being under the purview of 4 NRC in this option?
5 MR. CAMERON: We assumed that it was not 6 going to be.
7 MR. KILLAR: The issue is that it would be 8 an improvement for the licensees if NRC took the ball.
9 But it would be limited only to the AEA material.
10 The issue is that most of our licensees 11 have AEA as well as NORM. And so just taking one away 12 doesn't solve the problem.
13 MR. GODWIN: So it would be better for 14 them to have both of it, discreet sources?
15 MR. KILLAR: That's right.
16 MR. CAMERON: Let's --
17 MR. MYERS: If I could just jump in a 18 second. If I could put that a different way. So 19 then, what I'm hearing is that the only way Number 1 20 only becomes viable is if it includes the NORM 21 materials. Is that correct?
22 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
23 MR. SHOWALTER: In the change of 24 authority, you get NORM under. And realistically, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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283 1 because of Congress, you would probably have to do 2 that.
3 MR. GODWIN: Make sure you're talking 4 about discreet NORM, because you get this other, and 5 it gets a little more complex.
6 MR. KILLAR: It does go back to our 7 recommendation to an extent, but our recommendation 8 goes beyond the AEA material. We feel the NRC needs 9 to regulate the NARM material as well in order to be 10 truly effective.
11 MR. CAMERON: Let's move this -- let's get 12 all these comprehensive factors out here that we were 13 talking about before. And going to Jim's comment, 14 one, it increases -- if NARM isn't included here, 15 licensee costs --
16 MR. KILLAR: Then you're back to two 17 different licenses at least for the material. From a 18 licensee perspective, it doesn't help the problem.
19 VOICE: It makes it worse.
20 MR. KILLAR: We're basically doing the 21 same thing we're doing today.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Terry, what was --
23 your point would be -- I mean, what were some of the 24 other points we had on this issue about what are the 25 implications if NORM isn't included here? Is one the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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284 1 practical one that if they're going to go in and do 2 something this radical that it would be unlikely that 3 they wouldn't throw NORM in or --
4 MR. FRAZEE: Right. I mean, the business 5 about eliminating the agreement states, I mean, that's 6 got to be -- that sounds like a really dumb idea.
7 (General laughter.)
8 MR. FRAZEE: Well, I mean, in the context, 9 the industry would prefer to have one agency deal with 10 the whole thing, so NARM under AEA makes a lot of 11 sense to the industry, it makes a lot of sense to the 12 states.
13 To then eliminate the agreement state 14 Program is not practical. It doesn't make a whole lot 15 of sense. I can't understand that one.
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's get --
17 MR. FRAZEE: The other issue that I think 18 you were trying to drive at and get me back to was the 19 cost factor.
20 That if NRC takes over the licensing from 21 our state, takes away the Atomic Energy Act stuff from 22 the state of Washington, for instance, then we're only 23 left with the potential for licensing NORM, which I 24 hope to think that we would choose to do that.
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285 1 Some states maybe don't have the authority 2 or wouldn't choose to do so, and so there wouldn't be 3 a cost to the licensees in those states.
4 But in our state and others, there would 5 still be a cost, reduced, but there would still be a 6 cost left to be doing business in our state, and on 7 top of that, whatever the NRC is going to charge, 8 which the current rate is going to be more than what 9 we charge now. So the cost to the licensee is going 10 to go up.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Tony.
12 MR. THOMPSON: I think including the NARM 13 in the concept here gets you closer -- if you have one 14 agency doing it, like say NRC, it gets you closer to 15 the position where you can regulate like hazards in a 16 like fashion, because it would all be under the same 17 jurisdiction.
18 So that's getting you closer to this 19 theoretical regulating like risks in a like fashion, 20 because the one agency would have authority over the 21 whole schmuck.
22 MS. ALLEN: That would streamline 23 discussions on this stuff, too, I think.
24 MR. CAMERON: Should we go back to Jim's 25 question, which is, does this option make any sense at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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286 1 all if NARM isn't included in it? I mean, a lot of 2 you feel that it doesn't make any sense anyway.
3 Right?
4 MR. GODWIN: But I think we're talking 5 more than just this option. I think we're talking 6 about all the options. See, we're trying to talk 7 about all the options. You keep coming back to this 8 one, but we're trying to talk about all of them, you 9 need to have this on.
10 MS. ALLEN: Just for the purposes of 11 discussion, I think.
12 MR. GODWIN: Just for this discussion, you 13 know, here.
14 MS. ALLEN: I think it would streamline 15 it.
16 MR. HOUSE: Implementation may be a step 17 in this process to get us there, but let's get on the 18 yellow bus and go out there eight or ten years and 19 say, you know, what do we want? All the sources of 20 rad materials ought to be under the same set of regs.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Now, to make sure 22 that I understand where you all are is, we're talking 23 about adding NORM or not adding it across all options.
24 Is that correct?
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287 1 MR. GODWIN: We're talking about adding it 2 to all the options, discreet NORM on all options.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
4 VOICE: Or NARM?
5 MR. FRAZEE: Well, there should be a 6 status quo which doesn't.
7 MR. MINNAAR: Not only discreet. All NORM 8 and NARM.
9 MR. FRAZEE: If it's radioactive.
10 MR. MINNAAR: Right. Radioactive.
11 MR. FRAZEE: And Number 2 could be an 12 improvement in the way we're doing business now that 13 would not include NARM or any other legislative change 14 being required.
15 So there are some options where -- no --
16 you don't need to or wouldn't consider that NARM is 17 now universal. But clearly this one --
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
19 MR. FRAZEE: Wrong one to start with.
20 This one, then, doesn't make any sense to eliminate 21 the agreement states if you don't do something with 22 NARM.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So we're back to 24 discussing -- we're going to discuss NARM in each NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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288 1 option. Because as Terry said, sometimes it may make 2 more sense for some rather than others.
3 But at least humor me. For Number 1, we 4 think that it doesn't make any sense unless you 5 include NARM?
6 VOICES: Right.
7 MR. CAMERON: Does everybody -- do we --
8 does anybody have any serious objections to that?
9 (No response.)
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Good.
11 Legal authority for Number 1.
12 MS. McBURNEY: You would have to have 13 legislation.
14 MR. GODWIN: You've got to change the law.
15 VOICE: Not necessarily. There are ways 16 to get around it, but to change the law would be the 17 best way.
18 One way to get around it is that --
19 MR. GODWIN: There's no way --
20 VOICE: Are there practical way to get 21 around it without changing the AEA?
22 MR. GODWIN: I don't think there's any 23 practical way to --
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289 1 MS. McBURNEY: Unless you got consensus 2 from all the agreement states that we'll just 3 voluntarily give it back.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Bob.
5 Bob, what were you going to say?
6 MR. LEOPOLD: You would have to change the 7 statute in order to deal with the NARM issue, anyway.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. It seems to me that 9 people are pretty much in agreement that you need to 10 change the statute.
11 MR. KILLAR: There is another option. EPA 12 could cede the authority for NARM to the NRC.
13 MR. THOMPSON: What authority do they have 14 over it?
15 MR. KILLAR: They have the authority for 16 anything that's not under AEA. So even though they 17 don't say it, they do feel they have authority.
18 MR. THOMPSON: Well, I know. But they've 19 talked about it and they've talked about it. And like 20 TOSCA [phonetic] may be the only thing they've got.
21 And so, you know, I think you've got to change the 22 AEA. It's very unclear what authority they have.
23 MR. CAMERON: Well, I think it should be 24 phrased as, you may be able to figure out some radical 25 schemes where you wouldn't need to do it. But in all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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290 1 likelihood, it would be a major legislative 2 initiative. Okay?
3 MR. GODWIN: There is one way that some of 4 the NORM can be taken up, and that's if somebody 5 declared it source material.
6 MS. ALLEN: Is that before or after 1978?
7 (General laughter.)
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Kathy.
9 Thanks for putting that on the table.
10 MS. ALLEN: Anytime.
11 MR. CAMERON: So I think we can move on 12 now. How about the efficiency, the types of concepts 13 Mark was talking about, synergy, eliminate 14 duplication, identify best practices? Is NRC being in 15 charge of the whole ball game a way to achieve this?
16 Felix, you're shaking your head yes, you 17 think so.
18 MR. KILLAR: You need to have a central 19 organization. NRC makes sense.
20 Does it have to be the NRC? No. But from 21 a practicality standpoint, the NRC makes sense.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Anybody else on the 23 efficiency angle? Ruth.
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291 1 MS. McBURNEY: There wouldn't be a need 2 for synergy if they were doing it all. Who would they 3 synergize with, themselves?
4 MR. CAMERON: Kate.
5 MS. ROUGHAN: Well, Chip, the efficiency 6 would only be obtained if they actually got all their 7 input up-front in the process, if they don't come out 8 with a proposed rule where they haven't gotten any 9 input from the states or from any other stakeholders, 10 because you're just going to waste time going back and 11 forth on comments.
12 MR. CAMERON: So that's tied into this 13 early access. Okay. Good point.
14 And all of this is going on the transcript 15 as grist for the working group mill. John.
16 MR. HICKEY: I think the efficiency is a 17 mixed picture. There is some efficiency with a 18 central organization and there's some lack of 19 efficiency with a central organization.
20 If people raise issues that don't have a 21 high priority, they're not going to be dealt with, 22 whereas at the state level they might be dealt with.
23 So I think it's a mixed picture whether it 24 would be more efficient or not.
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292 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Donny, is that what 2 you wanted to say?
3 MR. DICHARRY: Yes.
4 MR. CAMERON: All right. Aubrey.
5 MR. GODWIN: I think, relative to 6 efficiency, the states generally give a much quicker 7 turnaround time on licensing actions than the NRC can 8 in their jurisdiction, and that's probably due to the 9 fact that we have a little bit better staffing ratio 10 to a licensee.
11 MR. CAMERON: So it's this again mixed bag 12 on efficiency. Tony.
13 MR. THOMPSON: I agree with that, because 14 you have right now, to the extent that states retain 15 the authority over hazardous components and things 16 other than radiological, you have duplication and 17 overlapping regulation even if NRC has the authority 18 over the substance right now.
19 So you do away with some duplication, but 20 there's some of the duplication in the system that 21 that's not going to help or affect.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Yes. Dwight.
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293 1 locked out now, so somebody will have to let back in 2 if you go out to the restroom now.
3 MR. CAMERON: So in other words, you have 4 an excuse to leave.
5 (General laughter.)
6 MR. CAMERON: All right. Now, is this 7 fairly straightforward, the flexibility, uniformity, 8 consistency attribute? No?
9 MR. SCHMIDT: I think from the 10 standpoint -- I'll speak for myself now.
11 (General laughter.)
12 MR. CAMERON: Did she give you permission?
13 We didn't see that.
14 MR. SCHMIDT: May I? Just kidding.
15 I think from the standpoint -- you know, 16 if you're looking at the first option there, that from 17 the standpoint of uniformity and consistency, sure.
18 You're going see an improvement there if you've got 19 one organization that's doing it all on a nationwide 20 level.
21 I think from the standpoint of 22 flexibility, though, it gets a lot muddier. You've 23 got now supposedly a one-size-fits-all regulation that 24 doesn't give individual state differences the chance 25 to happen.
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294 1 You know, this is not a homogeneous 2 country, a homogeneous state. So I think that the 3 flexibility aspect would suffer under that particular 4 arrangement.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Jim.
6 MR. MARBACH: Can I ask a question? Maybe 7 it applies as a comprehensive aspect. And forgive my 8 ignorance here.
9 Would this option mean that for a medical 10 facility, say, in the state of Texas we'd just be 11 adding another bunch of book work, because now instead 12 of just dealing with Ruth in Austin we're going to be 13 dealing with the NRC?
14 MR. CAMERON: It sounds so much nicer to 15 deal with Ruth in Austin than the NRC.
16 MS. McBURNEY: That's right.
17 MR. MARBACH: No. But I'm trying to 18 understand. Is that what that means?
19 MS. McBURNEY: That means that you would 20 do us for X-rays and accelerators and them for 21 materials.
22 MR. MARBACH: Instead of doing it all with 23 you, we'd have another agency to deal with.
24 MS. McBURNEY: That's right.
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295 1 MR. MARBACH: I guess I don't have to tell 2 you that I would call that a negative.
3 (General laughter.)
4 VOICE: There may be some slight 5 differences in the interpretation of Part 20.
6 MR. CAMERON: And that goes back to --
7 you're right. That does go back to that comprehensive 8 issue.
9 How about stability? And I framed in 10 terms of, I was thinking about Tony's comment about 11 the EPA. You still have the EPA trump card. Right?
12 MR. THOMPSON: Yes. You do, unless when 13 you're changing the statute to include NORM and get 14 rid of agreement states, you take EPA out.
15 MR. CAMERON: All right.
16 MR. GODWIN: But that may slow up the 17 legislation.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So there may be --
19 and this is just being perfectly neutral here -- if 20 you're going in to do this major a change, that it may 21 make it easier to take care of other jurisdictional 22 problems. Okay. You could say that may be looked at 23 as a plus of this.
24 NRC role -- go ahead, Ruth. Speak up.
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296 1 MS. McBURNEY: Well, I think under this 2 scheme the NRC role would increase. I mean, it would 3 be all powerful.
4 MR. CAMERON: And I guess that some of the 5 NRC role that they do now would decrease, obviously.
6 There wouldn't be state programs -- well, I guess you 7 would review the regions, though, wouldn't you? Would 8 there be a --
9 MS. McBURNEY: Not under the state and 10 tribes program.
11 VOICE: There would be no state program.
12 MR. CAMERON: All right.
13 MS. ALLEN: What about tribes?
14 MR. CAMERON: Pardon me?
15 MS. ALLEN: What about Indian tribes?
16 MS. McBURNEY: They would still do tribes.
17 MS. ALLEN: Right. So state and tribal 18 programs would still sort of exist just for tribal 19 programs, then.
20 MS. McBURNEY: Or they would reorganize.
21 MR. CAMERON: There may be a liaison 22 function. Right. Fred, do you want to talk a little 23 bit about that?
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297 1 be a liaison program which involves coordinating with 2 states on matters that the NRC is dealing with, which 3 in this case would be reactors and all materials 4 issues.
5 MR. CAMERON: Just as Bill's people might 6 go to keep track of the reactor happenings that are 7 going on in Florida, they now would be looking at 8 maybe major materials and so forth?
9 MR. COMBS: Yes. We'd tell them, for 10 example, that a gauge has been stolen from Pompano 11 Beach and that the local authorities should be looking 12 out for it and describe it, that type of coordination.
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Anybody else on NRC 14 role, or can we move -- this is role of other 15 organizations. Other Feds, we've talked about EPA.
16 Doe it have any impact on ISCORS, CRCPD? Obviously 17 there's no organization of agreement states. Right?
18 MS. ALLEN: No.
19 MR. SCHMIDT: Could it be Organization of 20 Former agreement states?
21 (General laughter.)
22 MR. CAMERON: How about CRCPD? What would 23 be the relationship to the NRC of the CRCPD?
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298 1 every state would be on the same playing field when it 2 came to radioactive materials.
3 And so there would still be that need to 4 interact with the NRC. So I think there would still 5 be a relationship. It just wouldn't be the same 6 relationship that it is now.
7 MS. ALLEN: Plus CRCPD does X-ray stuff.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Ruth.
9 MS. McBURNEY: Yes. That was the point I 10 was going to make. On basic radiation protection 11 standards, you would still have to have a coordinating 12 role on how to fit those regulations into the X-ray 13 scheme and so forth.
14 MR. CAMERON: Aubrey.
15 MR. GODWIN: I would suspect that the NRC 16 agency priorities would still be heavily weighted 17 towards reactors.
18 And as a result I think the relationship 19 with CRCPD would be very heavily along the lines of 20 emergency reactor response and the latest developments 21 in reactor technology and probably tie in a little bit 22 with DOE relative to shipments of spent fuel.
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299 1 that occurred where somebody got burned or something 2 like that.
3 But for the most part you would duck the 4 accountability by declaring most things classified, 5 and nobody would hear about them, like it used to be 6 way back when.
7 MR. CAMERON: In the Dark Ages. Mark.
8 MR. DORUFF: I think one other thing that 9 has to be very carefully considered is where you draw 10 the line regarding jurisdiction over materials and 11 radiation-producing machines.
12 An example I can think of is the cyclotron 13 where you -- the machine itself becomes material 14 through activation.
15 So, you know, are you going to regulate 16 the activated target when it rolls out of the 17 cyclotron bunker from that point forward, or do you 18 then open regulation of the machine itself to the new 19 regulatory agency?
20 VOICE: And that's not only cyclotrons.
21 That's on all the nuclear accelerators, as well.
22 MS. McBURNEY: Yes. Anything above a 23 certain energy level is going to be producing 24 material, activation products.
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300 1 MR. CAMERON: So this is still sort of a 2 dysfunctionality or fragmentation?
3 MR. DORUFF: I don't suggest that we 4 answer the question here. It's just something that 5 needs to be considered.
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right. Yes.
7 Dwight.
8 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes. I just wanted to 9 reinforce the point that Aubrey made earlier. It 10 might fall under efficiency instead of budget.
11 But in responding to events the states are 12 a lot more efficient because they're there at the 13 local level, they're used to working with the local 14 police and everything.
15 So from an efficiency standpoint the NRC 16 can't function the way the states do in responding to 17 events and being right on the spot when things happen.
18 So that's a big negative in my view.
19 MR. CAMERON: That goes to Aubrey's point 20 about, I guess they're just going to have to do it all 21 from Dallas.
22 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes.
23 MR. CAMERON: All right. How about 24 accountability?
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301 1 MR. HOUSE: Could I follow up on that 2 comment?
3 MR. CAMERON: Yes. Sure. Go ahead.
4 MR. HOUSE: As part of the implementation 5 of this program through the NRC, there's nothing to 6 say that there couldn't be 40 or even 50 regional 7 locations. That would still get you down to a local 8 level to do the things you're doing that you spoke 9 about.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So Bill -- for a lot 11 of these things there may be down sides that could be 12 mitigated in some way. And what you're saying is 13 there could be a larger regional structure, more 14 regions for the NRC?
15 MR. HOUSE: Right.
16 MR. CAMERON: All right. Cindy, I'm going 17 to ask you, could you, in terms of this option, give 18 us a sample of what you mean by accountability?
19 MS. PEDERSON: I think in this option 20 accountability would be very clearly with the NRC.
21 We're going to be the ones -- if under this model the 22 NRC had the responsibility, it would be clear that NRC 23 would be accountable to the public or to Congress or 24 to whomever.
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302 1 So I think this one is an easy answer. I 2 think with some of the other options it would be a lot 3 more difficult to answer the accountability question.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And I think that 5 gives us an idea of what you mean by accountability.
6 I'm going to go back to something that 7 Dave was trying to tell us early on, is that maybe 8 what we need to do is that maybe what we need to do is 9 ask for all of these -- and I may be wrong in how I'm 10 characterizing what you were thinking of, Dave.
11 But do we need to get a feeling about, 12 what is the practicality of implementing a particular 13 option, just sort of, where does this go on your 14 practicality meter, like the needle disappears to the 15 left somewhere or --
16 Everybody is shaking their heads yes.
17 MS. ALLEN: Like on a scale of 1 to 10, 18 this is a negative 2 kind of thing?
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We've got Tony, and 20 we've got John. John.
21 MR. HICKEY: I don't agree with that. I 22 think if everybody agreed to do it it would be 23 relatively practical. But you would need legislation, 24 and you would need to shift some resources.
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303 1 But if all the agreement states decided 2 they don't want to be agreement states anymore, that 3 would be fairly practical to implement.
4 MR. CAMERON: And I guess that we still 5 need to include the threshold question, though, about 6 practicality from a political perspective about 7 whether this would be such a -- would it be a real 8 non-starter? Tony.
9 MR. THOMPSON: Well, I think that again 10 the problem is that every time we look at this we wind 11 up splitting certain things out.
12 I mean, I think that bringing NARM under 13 the Atomic Energy Act is quite practical and quite 14 reasonably possible within the existing structure or 15 one of these others. So that part of it I think is 16 very practical.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
18 MR. MINNAAR: But to take that a step 19 further to the option laid out in Number 1, I think 20 we're crossing reasonability when it comes to being 21 practical.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
23 MR. MINNAAR: I don't think we can 24 reasonably expect that to occur.
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304 1 MR. CAMERON: Any further comments on 2 Option 1 before we go -- if we could, we could try to 3 see if we could do a streamlined run-through of these 4 attributes for this streamlined option and see if we 5 could get out of here by 5:30.
6 But I also want to give Mark and others, 7 anybody who might not be here tomorrow, a chance to 8 tell us anything they think about the other options.
9 So I want to leave time for that, also.
10 MR. DORUFF: I just want to make one brief 11 last comment about Option 1.
12 Going back to what we said about 13 synergy -- and I think the way we left it was that 14 there was not too much opportunity for synergy here 15 because you're doing away with the duplicative 16 regulation.
17 However, you would have the opportunity, 18 it appears, on this option to redeploy some of the 19 agreement state or other state staff, and you would be 20 able to retain some of their expertise by perhaps 21 rolling them into the expanded role that NRC would be 22 taking on.
23 MR. CAMERON: And you know, I think we're 24 all using synergy in a different way. Synergy to me 25 is more than just eliminating duplication. That's why NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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305 1 I threw in that duplication -- Kate used it in the 2 sense of, you've got to get early information out on 3 it.
4 But I'm still not sure any of us are using 5 it exactly the way it is defined, which is to take 6 advantage of an opportunity when two things come 7 together.
8 But at any rate, how about Option 2? Can 9 we do that? Can you do one more option today before 10 we leave?
11 VOICE: Sure.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Streamline NRC-13 agreement state Program. Jim mentioned giving sealed 14 sources back to the state.
15 I mean, do we have an understanding of 16 what streamlined NRC program means?
17 MR. MYERS: Let me clarify that, because 18 the way it's written it implies that the agreement 19 state Program would be streamlined.
20 And I think what we meant was that you 21 would retain the agreement state Program, maybe 22 enhance it slightly or something. But you would 23 streamline the NRC's process and the things that it 24 does.
25 MR. CAMERON: So streamline --
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306 1 VOICE: How?
2 MR. MYERS: Well, let's say that --
3 MR. CAMERON: Oh. NRC role in the 4 agreement state Program?
5 MR. THOMPSON: Let's take something like 6 performance-based licensing, which is a concept that 7 theoretically streamlines NRC's regulatory oversight.
8 And the question is, there are going to be 9 a number of states who are going to object to that for 10 whatever reason, because they don't think maybe it 11 gives enough public participation. Maybe some states 12 will think it's okay.
13 So I'm not sure, you know -- that's a good 14 example of streamlining NRC, but it may be something 15 that's not acceptable to all the states.
16 MR. MYERS: And I would think, too, that 17 part of the streamlining process is to look at what we 18 do, not so much in the range of Number 3 where you 19 really get it down to the absolute minimum.
20 But some middle ground, maybe not as much 21 as we would do today, let's say, in terms of analysis 22 or tracking in-meds reports, but we would continue to 23 do it, but to a lesser level. You know, is there 24 anything that can be done?
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307 1 And the specifics, I mean, probably don't 2 really -- maybe they do matter. But it just seems 3 like in some cases, is there a better way that NRC 4 could do business still retaining the agreement state 5 Program that would provide everything we need in terms 6 of a future program?
7 MR. CAMERON: This is like, do it better, 8 smarter?
9 MR. MYERS: Yes. Kind of, I guess, 10 something along that line. You know, is there better 11 working relationships that you can develop?
12 MS. ALLEN: This may go back to some of 13 the other comments we've heard today where you take a 14 look at things that maybe states have shown that they 15 can do, like allowing distribution of exempt 16 quantities to be authorized by states, not necessarily 17 NRC, with a dual licensing type situations in states.
18 Looking at what kinds of things that NRC 19 can maybe give to the states or allow the states to do 20 for them either in an exchange type program or some 21 sort of MOU or some other kinds of agreements.
22 MR. CAMERON: Well, it would take -- Terry 23 mentioned, Let's not forget about the no-action 24 alternative.
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308 1 But you would take the status quo, and you 2 would say, how can we improve it without making any 3 major changes? Okay?
4 MS. ALLEN: Right. Right.
5 MR. CAMERON: And we don't know what those 6 specific improvements might be. But if you look at it 7 from a process angle, it's, let's see how we can 8 improve the NRC program, eliminate some of these 9 dysfunctionalities, whatever. Right?
10 MS. ALLEN: But this would only be looking 11 at streamlining NRC type things. And some of those 12 responsibilities then get shifted to states.
13 MR. ENTWISTLE: Yes.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Fred.
15 MR. ENTWISTLE: I just wonder if we want 16 to make it more general and say, to try and 17 rationalize both NRC and agreement states. I would 18 see this as a place where the master material license, 19 that would actually be something coming from the 20 agreement state side going back to the NRC.
21 So I would see -- could we call this a way 22 of looking at shifting those responsibilities where 23 right now we have things that overlap or that cause 24 these dysfunctionalities?
25 VOICE: Going both ways.
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309 1 MR. ENTWISTLE: Trade things both ways, 2 whatever, so you have a more rational system than what 3 we have now.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Jim and Kathy, 5 there's a proposal from Fred. And I don't know 6 whether --
7 MR. MYERS: Our working group advisor just 8 pointed out something. I guess in the lateness of the 9 day what we want to talk about on this streamlining 10 option is that NRC streamlines to do the minimum 11 required by the statute.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
13 MS. ALLEN: So if the statute says, You 14 have to report to Congress all doses in excess of blah 15 or all deaths, that that's all you look for. And you 16 come to the states once a year and say, Tell me how 17 many deaths, how many exposures greater than blah, and 18 that's it.
19 The other incidents, the other, you know, 20 how many gauges did you lose, you don't even look at 21 that stuff because it's not mandated.
22 MR. CAMERON: So it isn't, do it smarter, 23 better. And Fred's statement is really another 24 option, which is --
25 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
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310 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So that's like a --
2 we'll put -- you want me to put that over here as --
3 MR. ENTWISTLE: Optimize the present 4 system.
5 MR. CAMERON: Optimize the present 6 framework -- program. Okay. Optimize the present 7 program.
8 MR. KILLAR: To an extent that's part of 9 what we're trying to do with our option.
10 MR. CAMERON: And that could include -- 6 11 could be folded in there, couldn't it?
12 MR. MYERS: Yes.
13 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
14 MR. CAMERON: All right. Okay. So now 15 let's go to what we understand, which is the 16 minimalist option. Okay? Access to decision making 17 stakeholders. Does it --
18 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: It would be no change.
19 MR. CAMERON: No change, as Dwight is 20 saying? Do the rest of you agree with that?
21 MS. McBURNEY: I think it might go down.
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311 1 stakeholder involvement early. It might cut down on --
2 MR. CAMERON: With the minimum under the 3 statute, if you took that literally, it would be 4 anything that we do from a policy standpoint to 5 involve the public and stakeholders.
6 NRC-agreement state working groups down 7 the tubes, that whole business.
8 So from that standpoint, Dwight, it would 9 be a negative. Right?
10 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Right.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Jim Lieberman from 12 NRC's Office of General Counsel, since we don't have 13 a mic for you.
14 MR. LIEBERMAN: Doesn't 274(g) require 15 NRC -- they're directed to cooperate with the states 16 in setting standards. So we would still have to --
17 MS. McBURNEY: Cooperate with the state.
18 MR. LIEBERMAN: -- discuss things with 19 the states.
20 MR. CAMERON: You do. And going to just 21 legal authority, I think Jim is bringing up something 22 that we at the NRC -- and I don't think the working 23 group has really closed on -- is what is actually --
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312 1 have a description of what that means. We haven't 2 done that yet.
3 And I guess that the working group will 4 have to figure out how to flesh that out. Is that 5 correct, Kathy and Jim?
6 MS. ALLEN: Yes.
7 MR. CAMERON: All right.
8 Budgetary/resourceimplications, the types of things 9 we've talking there, from NRC/agreement state/licensee 10 standpoints.
11 MS. ALLEN: Maybe your costs go down 12 because, instead of doing research on things, if you 13 decide you're doing the new ICRP, you just take it.
14 You don't reevaluate it, you just say, We're matching 15 International, and, boom, that's it. No argument, no 16 discussion, no research, no nothing.
17 MR. CAMERON: You know, when you trace 18 that, isn't there an issue here about, maintain or 19 ensure protection of public health and safety is a 20 certain level, which this option might -- I don't 21 know.
22 Where are the criteria where effect on 23 public health and safety come in? Do we need that?
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313 1 this option denigrate protection of public health and 2 safety or decrease it?
3 MR. MYERS: You would have to assume that, 4 to whatever lowest level you go, that you were not in 5 violation of the strategic plan and goals that the NRC 6 has established, like zero fatalities. So you would 7 have to weave the program to fit that strategic goal.
8 And you know, that's the dilemma. The 9 "How do you do it" probably isn't so important in this 10 discussion.
11 But I think if you just kind of visualize 12 that, you would minimize everything that you're doing 13 in an effort to reduce the costs and burden and get it 14 down to the, as I said, the lowest air speed you can 15 and still maintain control, and just fly at that 16 speed.
17 Because obviously there's things that we 18 do that are done because of a requirement, but they're 19 done over and above an effort level necessary just to 20 meet the requirement.
21 MR. CAMERON: When you get to legal 22 authority I think you need to ask yourself, if the NRC 23 were to adopt this minimalist approach, it wouldn't be 24 a minimalist approach as dictated by a floor set by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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314 1 the strategic plan necessarily. Do you think that the 2 strategic plan might be revised?
3 MR. MYERS: Well, the strategic plan could 4 change, too. I mean, that's not inviolate. I mean, 5 you could --
6 MR. CAMERON: So I guess you need to say, 7 what do you mean minimum, as required by what?
8 MS. ALLEN: Statutory requirements, AEA.
9 Yes.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Ruth, did you have 11 something on budgetary?
12 MS. McBURNEY: Yes. If some of these 13 items like sealed source and device reviews were given 14 back to the states, in some of the agreement states 15 that are not doing that currently, there would be 16 budgetary implications for those states in training 17 costs and resources.
18 MR. CAMERON: So if the NRC is saying, 19 We're getting rid of this, you have to do it, then, 20 obviously for those states that aren't doing it there 21 would be budgetary implications.
22 MS. McBURNEY: Right.
23 MR. CAMERON: Any other budgetary 24 implications? Kathy.
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315 1 MS. ALLEN: Well, if let's say a few more 2 states go agreement state, and NRC has no more well 3 loggers in their jurisdiction, they would have no more 4 reason to create well logging rules. Correct?
5 MR. KILLAR: Who is going to create them 6 if the NRC doesn't?
7 MS. ALLEN: That would be up to the 8 states, then, to do.
9 MR. KILLAR: How are you going to have a 10 national standard if you have 50 states establishing 11 regulations?
12 MS. ALLEN: Through CRCPD at this point.
13 MR. GODWIN: CRCPD circulates a 14 suggested --
15 MR. KILLAR: CRCPD has no national mandate 16 to establish regulations. They are strictly voluntary 17 regulations. And so Texas may agree to it, but 18 Illinois doesn't.
19 MR. CAMERON: Let's go to Fred on this 20 one.
21 MR. COMBS: Yes. If we had no more well 22 loggers, NRC would still have the responsibility to 23 ensure that well logging is done in a manner that 24 protects public health and safety. And the easiest NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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316 1 way to do that without licensing is to promulgate 2 regulations to ensure it.
3 MR. CAMERON: So that is part of our 4 minimum responsibilities. Our counsel was shaking his 5 head yes back there.
6 MS. ALLEN: But would you still need to 7 write rules, or would you just have to evaluate 8 whether or not the states are still adequately 9 protecting public health and safety?
10 MR. COMBS: Well, we'd have to do it based 11 on a benchmark, and the benchmark would probably be 12 the rules. Otherwise you've got no basis for an 13 adequate --
14 MR. KILLAR: You have to have some 15 criteria to subject to.
16 MR. CAMERON: Jim, do you have anything to 17 offer to us on this?
18 MR. LIEBERMAN: Well, the statute 19 discusses establishing standards, which is what Fred 20 is talking about. And we normally establish standards 21 through rule-making. There may be some other ways to 22 establish standards. I'm not exactly sure how we 23 would do that. But the norm is through rules.
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317 1 MR. CAMERON: Yes. We've been through 2 that route where we specifically said that -- well, 3 I'll leave that one alone.
4 VOICE: And we could ask Ruth for help.
5 MR. CAMERON: Ruth.
6 VOICE: We could adopt Ruth's regs.
7 MS. McBURNEY: That's right. And in fact, 8 the point I was going to make is that the CRCPD and I 9 guess Texas or Louisiana or somebody created the first 10 well logging rules; it was not NRC. And before there 11 were well logging rules it was done by license 12 condition.
13 I mean, there are no specific rules for, 14 for example, portable gauges. But it's done under the 15 general provisions of Part 30 or whatever.
16 So I mean, there wouldn't necessarily have 17 to be a set of specific rules for a particular 18 industry if there were no licensees in that industry.
19 MR. MYERS: Well, and in fact we have a 20 policy with that now, if you don't have a need for it 21 and a need occurs, you can have legally binding 22 requirements, whether that means license conditions or 23 something else that you could use in lieu of 24 regulations for a period of time.
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318 1 MS. McBURNEY: The NRC does not have 2 specific rules for waste processors, some states do.
3 MR. MYERS: Well, and I'd also point out 4 that, if the issue is well logging, and we don't have 5 any well loggers, but we would probably see well 6 loggers under reciprocity, we are granting them a 7 general license to use their state-specific license to 8 perform an activity within our jurisdiction.
9 We still don't need a license -- or, I 10 mean -- I'm sorry -- we don't need a regulation for it 11 to allow them to do it.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's hear from Bob 13 on this.
14 MR. LEOPOLD: If I recall correctly, we're 15 discussing the attribute, financial.
16 MR. CAMERON: Yes. That's where we are.
17 MR. LEOPOLD: Yes. And I hear the NRC 18 people saying that they're going to keep writing regs 19 whether or not they have anybody in that category. So 20 your financial impact is you have no way to pay for 21 this. That's what I understand, the attribute we're 22 really discussing.
23 MR. CAMERON: Now, is that the way it 24 would play out?
25 MR. COMBS: Yes.
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319 1 MR. CAMERON: In other words --
2 (General laughter.)
3 MS. ALLEN: You have to think differently.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. John, did you want to 5 say something on budgetary?
6 MR. HICKEY: Well, I was just going to say 7 this gets back to Cindy Pederson's point about 8 accountability. You have to decide what you mean by 9 accountability.
10 If accountability means NRC puts a 11 regulation out, that's one concept; or it may be NRC 12 doesn't have accountability anymore, the states are 13 accountable, just like they are for X-ray machines.
14 So that was a very important point that 15 Cindy raised about bringing the concept of who is 16 accountable and what does that mean for each of these 17 options.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. How about legal 19 authority? I mean, is the assumption here that we do 20 the bare minimum that is legally required?
21 MR. THOMPSON: And the Commission, as the 22 prime agency with authority over the Atomic Energy 23 Act, is the prime interpreter of what satisfies the 24 requirements.
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320 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Definitely. How 2 about efficiency angles? Do we know enough about this 3 particular option to be able to say how it might 4 affect the type of efficiency considerations that 5 we've been talking about? Does it make them worse?
6 MR. MYERS: Presumably streamlining means 7 more efficient, but that can't be assumed.
8 MR. CAMERON: Well, I think that 9 streamlining -- I'm not sure that this is described 10 as, We're going to do the bare minimum. I mean, 11 streamlining always carries some -- is that synonymous 12 with doing the bare minimum? I don't think it's 13 synonymous with streamlining.
14 VOICE: Minimizing might be a better word 15 than streamlining.
16 MR. CAMERON: Yes. I mean, this is 17 minimizing. Is that -- can we change this?
18 MR. MYERS: Sure. That's more 19 descriptive.
20 MS. ALLEN: Go right ahead.
21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So I guess that 22 answers the streamlining question.
23 MR. GODWIN: But it raises another 24 question. Does that mean minimizing staff to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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321 1 point where necessarily they can't respond in a timely 2 manner; they respond, but it's not in a timely manner?
3 MR. CAMERON: I think that one of the 4 goals of minimizing might be to reduce staff. But as 5 was pointed out, the minimization would not go beyond 6 the level that would allow us to have reasonable 7 assurance of protection of public health and safety.
8 MR. GODWIN: Well, you can protect public 9 health and safety, but you may not respond to your 10 letters for 90 days. And by not giving people a 11 license for 90 days, you would protect the public 12 health and safety, because they couldn't get the 13 material.
14 But is that really where -- I mean, in 15 that case efficiency is down the tube.
16 MR. CAMERON: You're raising a good point, 17 though. There may be an efficiency in effect in that 18 NRC doesn't issue license in the same time that they 19 usually do. Right?
20 MR. MARBACH: But for medical applications 21 that could be a detriment.
22 MR. CAMERON: Good point.
23 MS. ALLEN: Oh, yes.
24 MR. GODWIN: Not just medical, a lot of 25 them.
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322 1 MR. CAMERON: Are we getting all this on 2 the transcript?
3 THE REPORTER: Well, not if you talk over 4 each other.
5 (General laughter.)
6 MR. CAMERON: Yes. If we could try not to 7 do that. George Pangburn.
8 MR. PANGBURN: I just have a question to 9 make sure I understood the scope of this particular 10 option. And the question is, are we assuming the bare 11 minimum for both the NRC licensing and inspection 12 program as its currently run out of the regions as 13 well as the oversight of the agreement state Program?
14 VOICE: Yes.
15 MR. PANGBURN: Okay. So in other words, 16 inspections, which we're not required to do, we 17 wouldn't do?
18 MS. ALLEN: Right.
19 MR. PANGBURN: And licensing, which we are 20 required to do by statute, we would do.
21 But then, things like response to events 22 and allegation and respond, those kinds of things 23 would all be by the boards because they're not called 24 for by statute.
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323 1 MR. CAMERON: And would this -- and we're 2 going to go to Dwight. But what would this mean in 3 terms of -- would licensee fees -- I mean, it isn't 4 going to change the fact that most of the licensees 5 are in agreement states.
6 So would licensee fees go down? What are 7 we talking about about these indirect costs? What's 8 the implications for that? And I want to ask George 9 and Dwight on that one.
10 MR. PANGBURN: I would expect that you 11 would see a slight decline or a levelling of costs to 12 licensees. But you've got to remember that, you know, 13 you can cut direct NRC direct costs by 10 percent and 14 only cut fees by 2 to 3 percent. It's because the G&A 15 and the indirect are the drivers.
16 MR. CAMERON: So the indirect would not 17 necessarily -- would not change under this approach, 18 or would it?
19 MR. LEOPOLD: What is G&A?
20 MR. PANGBURN: They might change. And 21 remember, the reactor program drives the agency's 22 budget. And a lot of the G&A is headquarters, human 23 resources, admin, contracts, support for the reactor 24 program.
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324 1 MR. CAMERON: Bob, do you understand what 2 the indirect costs are?
3 MR. LEOPOLD: Yes. G&A was not an acronym 4 I was familiar with, but he spelled it out for me.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Dwight.
6 MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I wanted to react to 7 George's point. I thought our premise was that we 8 were going to do the bare minimum, but we were going 9 to do the minimum and still maintain a level of 10 safety.
11 So you would have to say, do you need to 12 do a level of inspection to maintain safety? And I 13 think the answer is probably yes.
14 MR. MYERS: Yes. And I think that also, 15 George, is that if you're looking like at event 16 response, you know, the question is, do you need to 17 respond, say, to a lost gauge in 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> or could you 18 do it in 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />? You still have a response.
19 You know, the agency would be imprudent 20 not to respond to certain types of events at a higher 21 level. But right now what we do is we respond to 22 everything more or less.
23 And the question comes about, what's the 24 minimum response rate that you could have and still 25 adequately address health and safety?
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325 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. We talked 2 about terms of comprehensive regulation. This is 3 done. Cindy.
4 MS. PEDERSON: I'm sorry. I'm confused.
5 What I thought I just heard is two different options 6 being discussed, one being the minimum required by 7 statute. And the other was the protection of public 8 health and safety which included some things beyond 9 what the statute required. So I'm not sure what we're 10 talking about.
11 For example, the example of inspection 12 that was brought up. The statute doesn't require we 13 do inspection. But I've heard other people say, Well, 14 there's an expectation that we do some level. So I'm 15 unclear now how we have defined this item.
16 MR. CAMERON: Well, this gets into a 17 judgmental area of what level of inspection, for 18 example, we need do to maintain protection of public 19 health and safety. Tony, I'll let you go with that.
20 MR. THOMPSON: Yes. Well, my point again 21 is that the NRC, the Commission, has the prime 22 responsibility for interpreting the Atomic Energy Act 23 to determine what is necessary to protect public 24 health and safety.
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326 1 So when you talk about the statutory 2 requirements, that doesn't mean that the Commission 3 isn't going to say we need to do inspections here. We 4 need to do that in order to assure that we can fulfill 5 that general statutory role.
6 So I think it's a lot more flexible and 7 fluid. It's not so cut and dried as you might think 8 when you first look at it. Minimizing is going to be 9 a relative concept.
10 MR. CAMERON: And it's going to be perhaps 11 difficult.
12 MR. THOMPSON: Very difficult. And it 13 could change with -- you know, the Commission changes 14 and you get different Commissioners on, and the whole 15 thing changes.
16 MR. CAMERON: So I think that, you know, 17 we're hearing some practicality concerns coming up 18 here, some negatives in terms of this one.
19 NORM, Comprehensive, this is what, a wash 20 as far as that's -- well, of course, if we're only 21 doing the minimum, you wouldn't want NORM, would you?
22 VOICE: No.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So under this you 24 don't want it. All right.
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327 1 How about flexibility, uniformity, 2 consistency, those three? I mean, what does doing the 3 minimum -- does NRC -- how much does the NRC need to 4 be involved in adequacy and compatibility here?
5 I mean, would minimum mean, Fred, for 6 example, that we're really not going to -- I mean, 7 what does that do to our INPEP review, et cetera, et 8 cetera, et cetera? Might there be more flexibility 9 out there --
10 MR. COMBS: We could provide more 11 flexibility. But it gets back to the point that Tony 12 made. It's what the Commission decides is necessary 13 to protect public health and safety.
14 So this option amounts to a shaving of 15 resources more than anything. It's not -- you can do 16 a nip here, a tuck there, but you're not going to get 17 significant modification in the program unless you 18 make a basic decision that what you're doing is not 19 necessary to protect public health and safety.
20 Like the point that George made, we could 21 decide that inspection is not necessary to protect 22 public health and safety, or we could decide that a 23 certain level of licensing is not necessary to protect 24 public health and safety. Maybe we'll only do the 25 Type A broad licensees, radiators and radiographers.
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328 1 And we then will phone everybody else. Do 2 you still have your sources? Yes. Thank you very 3 much.
4 I mean, you can do it any number of ways.
5 So it's an extremely flexible thing that we have.
6 It's hard to define.
7 MS. ALLEN: Squishy.
8 MR. COMBS: Yes. It's really difficult to 9 define. And I think that's where we're having the 10 problem. Unfortunately, it's what the Commission 11 decides is the minimum set of activities it needs to 12 protect the public health and safety.
13 MR. CAMERON: So you really don't know 14 what impact it's going to have on flexibility and 15 uniformity until you see what minimum is?
16 MR. COMBS: Right. Until somebody 17 defines, quote, the minimum.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Anybody else? Kate, 19 do you have a comment?
20 MS. ROUGHAN: Yes. I think even if you 21 define the minimum, you're still going to have a lot 22 of differences between the states.
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329 1 standpoint, there are still going to be significant 2 differences.
3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So the uniformity 4 issues are still going to exist.
5 MS. ROUGHAN: Yes.
6 MR. CAMERON: Mark, do you have any 7 problem with that?
8 MR. DORUFF: No.
9 MR. CAMERON: Anyone have a thought on 10 that? George.
11 MR. PANGBURN: Just for the working 12 group's benefit, I'm glad I don't have to write this 13 paper.
14 But I think from the standpoint of trying 15 to describe this option, it might be useful to try and 16 lay out that this particular option could be a 17 continuum.
18 At one extreme would be, we would not do 19 the following, and then, perhaps some pragmatic set of 20 what we might do further along the continuum of 21 reasonableness. Just an observation.
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, George.
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330 1 would be more receptive to the daddy, you know, doing 2 it.
3 In other words, instead of going out to 4 set recycle standards, wouldn't the minimum be, Hey, 5 we're not going to set recycle standards until EPA 6 exercises its authority under the Reorganization Act?
7 Right?
8 VOICES: Right.
9 MR. CAMERON: So that might be part 10 again -- this continuum could have that included.
11 MR. PANGBURN: Right.
12 MR. CAMERON: I think NRC role is like 13 central to what we're talking about, obviously.
14 A rational regulatory scheme, this is the, 15 treat like risks or like materials similarly. So what 16 do you think would happen under this --
17 VOICE: It wouldn't change from where it 18 is now.
19 MS. ALLEN: Well, there is a possibility 20 that that may improve, because if you're looking at 21 taking serious cuts and seriously looking at your 22 inspection frequencies and your licensing criteria, 23 then, you're doing some of the stuff that other people 24 may be looking at now.
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331 1 Do we really need to issue licenses for 2 diagnostic nuclear medicine? Do we really need to 3 issue specific licenses for gas chromatographs? Those 4 types of things.
5 So we may find ourselves actually 6 evaluating risks more to determine what the minimum 7 is.
8 MR. CAMERON: This goes to Tony's point 9 earlier when he was talking about using performance 10 standards.
11 I mean, minimum could really take you into 12 areas like performance standards or, We're going to 13 eliminate the regulation of all low-risk activities.
14 Okay? So I mean, that has to be part of the 15 continuum, too, because that's a possibility.
16 Any other -- Terry.
17 MR. FRAZEE: Well, I'm not it's going to 18 be rational if, in eliminating a lot of things under 19 NRC's purview, that the NARM radiation hazards somehow 20 get out of balance. I mean, that's not what we're 21 trying to do. We're trying to equalize them, make 22 them the same, and rational that way.
23 But this is split. So if NRC does a 24 crash, then, where are we with NARM?
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332 1 MR. LEOPOLD: Maybe we have to minimalize, 2 too.
3 MR. CAMERON: All right. Role of other 4 organizations in this minimal scheme. Might the NRC 5 want to make more use of the CRCPD --
6 MS. McBURNEY: Yes.
7 MR. CAMERON: -- ISCORS -- well, let me 8 not combine them.
9 The NRC might rely on other organizations, 10 CRCPD, the standards development organizations, or 11 organizations who have a component like that. Aubrey.
12 MR. GODWIN: It's a possibility that in 13 minimizing some licensees may see less need to have a 14 clearly defined radiation safety section and move more 15 towards just a general safety program, see less need 16 to be responsive because there's less regulatory 17 differences there.
18 So you could see a change a little bit in 19 safety attitude, not necessarily level of safety.
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And how would that be 21 manifested, do you think? What would be an example?
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333 1 experience in general chemistry safety or general 2 hazard safety, with radiation as a secondary trend.
3 MR. CAMERON: All right.
4 MS. ALLEN: I mean, you have bodies with 5 slips, trips, falls, people being run over by vehicles 6 and things. You don't have as many bodies with fixed 7 gauge users. So licensees would then put their 8 resources towards the actual hazards themselves, as 9 well, possibly.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Did you get that, 11 Barbara?
12 THE REPORTER: Yes.
13 MR. CAMERON: All right. John mentioned 14 something about accountability. And I'm going to ask 15 Cindy again. This is yours. Do you want to say 16 anything about accountability?
17 MS. PEDERSON: Well, maybe it's just late 18 in the day, but I'm still not entirely clear how we've 19 defined this option.
20 But I think accountability is going to be 21 dependent upon how we define what the minimum is that 22 we're willing to live with.
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334 1 of public health and safety, however we define that, 2 we're still going to be accountable.
3 The question is, what's the states' 4 accountability piece of this? And I think depending 5 on how we frame what this option is that could be 6 variable.
7 So I don't have a good answer for 8 accountability on this one.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And I think that ties 10 into the last one of practicality. One of the things 11 that I think people have been bringing up here is that 12 this is just wide open in terms of how this particular 13 option is going to be defined. Aubrey.
14 MR. GODWIN: I think that many of the 15 states would argue that they are more accountable now 16 to an elected official than perhaps the NRC is in that 17 I, you know, directly report to an elected official.
18 In NRC's case, you know, there's an 19 appointed official involved that has to be, I guess, 20 impeached to be removed before term.
21 So there would be an argument that the 22 state programs in many cases are directly accountable 23 to the electorate in a closer degree than is the NRC 24 or EPA or FDA. And you can choose any of them. I'm 25 not trying to pick on NRC.
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335 1 MR. CAMERON: So when you get to this 2 Option 3 for accountability, since it's all going to 3 be entities that report to an elected official, 4 assuming that your assumption is right about 5 accountability, that accountability would go up here.
6 MR. GODWIN: Right. And there's arguments 7 to the contrary of that, too. But --
8 MR. CAMERON: Maybe. I don't know. I'm 9 just trying to flesh out the accountability.
10 MS. PEDERSON: If I could comment --
11 MR. CAMERON: Now, we have an 12 accountability expert with us on this.
13 (General laughter.)
14 MS. PEDERSON: I'm far from that, if 15 you're looking at me.
16 The comment I would have, though, is if 17 the NRC still is tasked with an oversight role and an 18 expectation of protection of public health and safety, 19 even if something happens in an agreement state, I 20 would -- well, I'm not a betting person.
21 But if I was to put money on -- the NRC 22 would be called down in front of Congress, and there 23 would be some kind of expectation and accountability 24 session regarding the NRC's oversight of that state 25 program.
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336 1 Not to say you also wouldn't have a 2 significant accountability issue with your state 3 elected officials and the public.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Felix, 5 and then Tony. And then I think we'll see if anybody 6 has any final comments.
7 MR. KILLAR: I was going to say basically 8 what Cindy said.
9 If you're talking about accountability, 10 you're talking about accountability for one incident.
11 And if it's an accident that happened in a local 12 jurisdiction, certainly the local jurisdiction, the 13 first thing they're going to look for is the state.
14 And so they'll go to the Aubreys and what-have-you in 15 the state that's responsible for that.
16 On the other side of the coin, as you go 17 on up the ladder, the NRC will be accountable to 18 Congress, because, why did that program break down in 19 that state and why did that event occur?
20 So accountability is to the level of where 21 you're looking at in the program.
22 MR. CAMERON: And again, I guess Congress 23 elected officials, we're ultimately going there.
24 Tony.
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337 1 MR. THOMPSON: I think accountability --
2 I mean, one of the problems with accountability of an 3 elected official in the state is you might have an 4 elected official in the state who is anxious to make 5 a name for himself or herself and run for President, 6 and the actual safety issues of it get demagogued.
7 And what we're dealing with NRC and these 8 other independent regulatory commissions is an agency 9 where you have not just one head who is somewhat 10 subject, you've got four or five different votes.
11 Not to say Commissioners aren't subject to 12 political pressures, but as you point out, they can't 13 be removed for the way they vote. The chairman can be 14 changed.
15 So that's the whole theory of an 16 independent regulatory agency, which is they are not 17 so subject to political whims and that they are in a 18 better position to make a judgment based on the facts 19 and the merits of the case. So that's the other side 20 of that.
21 MR. CAMERON: All right. Thank you, Tony.
22 Mark, do you have any -- I know you've 23 obviously got to go to catch a plane. But do you have 24 anything that you want to say to us about any other 25 options or anything like that before you go?
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338 1 MR. DORUFF: Most of what I really wanted 2 to express I think kind of got worked out as we 3 determined the issue of how comprehensive these 4 options would apply with respect to NARM.
5 The other thing I would add is that, in 6 response to the consideration and proposal for NRC to 7 expand its regulatory jurisdiction over NARM, CORAR 8 has prepared a position paper on that. And we're in 9 the final stages of making that official, having our 10 membership review it, and getting a consensus on it.
11 Once that has been approved essentially by 12 the directors of CORAR, we intend to provide that to 13 the NRC. We're not exactly sure to whom it will be 14 addressed.
15 But it does take what we would consider to 16 be the best of all these options, and it's not any one 17 of these options in particular. It has some of the 18 attributes of what NEI, what Felix has proposed.
19 And I think that once that is submitted, 20 I think maybe that input will be helpful to the 21 working group. I've given Kathy a copy of it, told 22 her to hold on to it until it's officially approved by 23 CORAR.
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339 1 But I think that would probably address 2 any of the points that I haven't made up to this 3 point.
4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Great. Well, thank 5 you for participating with us today.
6 MR. DORUFF: I appreciate the opportunity.
7 MR. CAMERON: It's been great. And it's 8 going to incorporate some material that will have 9 implications for what the working group is going to be 10 doing. Great. Okay.
11 Okay. Does anybody have any closing 12 comments for today?
13 (No response.)
14 MR. CAMERON: And I would suggest that we 15 try to do this same thing tomorrow for these.
16 We're getting better at this. And I think 17 that we have really given the working group some 18 material in terms of these options and your thoughts 19 on them. So thank you all.
20 And we're going to start at 8:30 tomorrow.
21 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 22 5:40 p.m., to reconvene at 8:30 a.m. the following 23 day, Thursday, February 22, 2001.)
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